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THREE SERMONS TO YOUNG MEN, 



PREACHED BT 



REV. WILLIAM S. HUaaiNS, 

OF KALAMAZOO, MICHIGAN, 



J>k 



FUNERAL DISCOURSE, 
By Key. Samuel Haskell. 



}0 



AN ACCOUNT OF THE FUNERAL AND ME3I0RIAL MEETING. 



PHILADELPHIA: 

PRESBYTERIAN PUBLICATION COMMITTEE. 

1862. 



187B [ )l 



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HENRT B. ASHMEAD, BOOK AND JOB PRIKTER, 
Nos. H02 and 1104 Sansom Stre«t. 



OF THE 

REVEREND WILLIAM SIDNEY HUGGINS, 

THE DEVOTED PASTOR, THE ACTIYB CITIZEN, THE FAITHFUL 

FRIEND, THE CHRISTIAN SCHOLAR, AND THE 

WISE COUNSELOR OF YOUTH, 

THIS VOLUME IS AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED 
BY THE 

YOUx\G MEN OP HIS CHURCH AND CONGREGATION. 



CONTENTS. 



Introduction, 7 

Funeral Services, . . . . . . 11 

Memorial Meeting, 19 

Funeral Discourse, 25 

Sermons to Young Men — 

I. The Bible the Young Man's Hand-book, 55 

II. The Bible the Young Man's Counselor, 86 

III. The Danger from Eyil Companions, . 116 



1* 



INTRODUCTION. 



Tms little volume is the result of an effort on 
the part of the Young Men of the church and con- 
gregation of Rev. Wm. S. Huggins to do honor to 
his memory, and, in some measure, to perpetuate 
his usefulness. A sense of duty that cannot be 
escaped, not less than the spontaneous suggestions 
of their hearts, impel them to this publication. 
While others mourn him as the faithful, devoted 
Pastor, the tried and true friend, the public-spirited 
citizen, or the accomplished scholar, they sorrow for 
him most deeply as the friend to young men. He 
had not himself so long passed the period of youth 
as to lose his sympathies with and interest in this 
large class of the community. To them were ever 
open the treasures of his richly-stored library, or of 
his yet more richly-stored mind; with them he con- 
versed freely on the great themes of Christian 



8 INTRODUCTION. 

theology and life, in the Sabbath-School, at their 
places of business, in the domestic and social circle — 
literally obeying the Divine command, "As ye go, 
preach;'^ for them he prayed and labored much, 
and in their behalf the last energies of his valuable 
life were expended. The great vacancy left by his 
death will never for them be wholly filled. Their 
language is : 

" Gone before us, our brother, 
To the*pirit-land; 
Vainly look we for another, 
In thy place to stand." 

It seemed fitting, then, that the series of Sermons 
written for their temporal and eternal welfare, and 
whose composition and delivery, it is now known, 
drew heavily upon hi& failing strength, should re- 
ceive publication at their hands. It is all that is 
left to them now of duty to their beloved Pastor — 
in this and other suitable ways to hallow his me- 
mory, and preserve it to posterity. But the Me- 
morial Volume, the monumental marble towering 
above his sleeping dust, or the eulogies that have 
been spoken in his honor, cannot so perpetuate his 
usefulness as the teachings of his life — the incul- 
cations from his pulpit, the words of wisdom which 
he spoke, whose results, it may be hoped, are endur- 
ing as the ages of eternity. 



INTRODUCTION. y 

" Servant of God, well done ! 

Rest from thj loved employ; 
The battle fought, the victory won, 

Enter thy Master's joy. 

" The pains of death are past, 

Labor and sorrow cease ; 
And life's long warfare closed at last, 

His soul is found in peace. 

'' Soldier of Christ, well done! 

Praise be thy new employ; 
And while eternal ages run, 

Rest in thy Saviour's joy." 

Of the three Sermons to Young Men, published 
in this volume, the first has already appeared in 
print, the second was repeated at the urgent request 
of many of his congregation, and the third is the 
last sermon written and delivered by the Pastor. 
Two other discourses were given in the series — 
one an address delivered on a funeral occasion some 
years ago, and the other a sermon pronounced at 
the ordination of Rev. Martin Post, of School- 
craft, Michigan, in February, 1862. As they were 
not prepared especially for the purposes of young 
men, and were not among the latest efforts of his 
life, it has not been thought well to insert them. 

In the hope and with the prayer that the pub- 
lication of these discourses, with the matter append- 



10 INTRODUCTION. 

ed, ma^ be effectual in perpetuating the memory of 
a wise and good man, and be blessed to the sal- 
vation of many young men, wherever they may go, 
this volume is now committed to the public. 

Kalamazoo^ Mich.^ May 31s^, 1862. 



FUNERAL SERVICES. 



THE FUNERAL SERVICES. 



[From the Kalamazoo Gazette, Marcli 2Stli, 1862.] 

The funeral services of Rev. W. S. Huggins 
were held in the Presbyterian Churchy on Wednes- 
day afternoon, (26th inst.,) at li o'clock. The 
spacious building was densely crowded, and many 
left unable to obtain a place. Nearly a thousand 
persons were present. Among them were Hon. E. 
G. Walker, of Detroit, an intimate friend and 
classmate of the deceased; Eev. 0. P. Hoyt, of 
Elkhart, Ind., formerly Pastor of the Church ; Rev. 
Messrs. ChaPIN, of Ann Arbor, McCorkle, of 
Marshall, Bryant, of Niles, Bartle, of Decatur, 
Davies, of Battle Creek, G-aston, of Hastings, 
Bradley, of Richland, Apthorp, of Cooper, Post, 
of Schoolcraft, and others from abroad. The clergy 
of the village, who were to conduct the exercises, 
alone occupied the pulpit. 

At the appointed hour, the remains of the lament- 
ed dead, deposited in a splendid metallic coffin, in- 
scribed with his name, age, and date of death, and 
covered with a rich pall, upon which were laid a 
crown of laurel, a cross of evergreen^ and a wreath 
of immortelles, were borne through the door by 



14 THE FUNERAL SERVICES. 

which the living form was accustomed to enter the 
sanctuary from his study. The following gentlemen 
served as pall-bearers : 
Henry Gilbert, F. E. Woodward, 

Alfred Thomas, Alfred Wilson, 

I. D. BixBY, John D. Rice, 

C. W. Hall, D. 0. Roberts. 

Rev. Geo. Willard, (Presbyterian,) opened the 
exercises by a solemn invocation, and continued 
them by giving out the hymn, entitled 

THE PASTOR'S DEATH.* 
Rest from thy labor, rest — 

Soul of the just, set free ! 
Blest be thy memory, and blest 

Thy bright example be ! 

Faith, perseverance, zeal. 

Language of light and power. 
Love, — prompt to act and quick to feel, — 

Marked thee, till life's last hour. 

Now, — toil and conflict o'er, — 

Go, take with saints thy place ; 
But go, as each hath gone before, 

A sinner saved by grace. 

Lord Jesus ! to thy hands 

Our Pastor we resign ; 
And now we wait thine own commands ; — 

"We were not his, but thine. 

* Hymn 54 in the Church Psalmist. 



THE FUNERAL SERVICES. 15 

Thou art thy Church's head ; 

And when the members die, 
Thou raisest others in their stead ; — 

To thee we lift our eye. 

On thee our hopes depend; 

We gather round our Rock; 
Send whom thou wilt, but condescend 

Thyself to feed thy flock. 

He also read appropriate selections of Scripture. 
Rev. Edward Taylor, (Congregational,) followed 
in a singularly beautiful and touching prayer, which 
melted all hearts, and closed amid the tears and 
sobs of the vast audience. The choir then sang : 

DEATH OF THE RIGHTEOUS.* 

How blest the righteous when he dies, — 

When sinks a weary soul to rest ! 
How mildly beam the closing eyes ! 

How gently heaves the expiring breast ! 

So fades a summer-cloud away : 

So sinks the gale when storms are o'er ; 

So gently shuts the eye of day ; 
So dies a wave along the shore. 

A holy quiet reigns around, — 

A calm which life nor death destroys ; 

Nothing disturbs that peace profound, 
Which his unfettered soul enjoys. 

* Hymn 624 in the Church Psalmist. 



16 THE FUNERAL SERVICES. 

Farewell, conflicting hopes and fears 1 
Where lights and shades alternate dwell ; 

How bright th' unchanging morn appears ! 
Farewell, inconstant world, farewell ! 

Life's duty done, as sinks the day, 
Light from its load the spirit flies ; 

While heaven and earth combine to say, — 
" How blest the righteous when he dies !" 

Theiij with a voice modulated to the tones of 
sorrow, though at times rising in eloquent strains 
of eulogy, Eev. Samuel Haskell^ (Baptist,) de- 
livered the Funeral Discourse.* 

At the close of the discourse, which was listened 
to throughout with tearful solemnity and the deepest 
interest, Rev. J. D. Hemenway, (Methodist,) offer- 
ed a brief prayer, and the choir tenderly and beau- 
tifully sang: 

"THERE IS SWEET REST IN HEAVEN.^f 

Though often here we're weary, 

There is sweet rest above, 
A rest that is eternal, 

Where all is peace and love ; 
let us then press forward. 

That glorious rest to gain : 
We'll soon be free from sorrow. 

From toil, and care, and pain. 
There is sweet rest, &c. 

* Published in a subsequent part of this volume, 
f Page 360 of the Eclectic Tune Book. This hymn was 
an especial favorite with the deceased. 



THE FUNERAL SERVICES. 17 

Loved ones have gone before U3, 

They beckon us away, 
O'er aerial plains they're soaring, 

Blest in eternal day ; 
But we are in the army, 

And dare not leave our post ; 
We'll fight until we conquer 

The foe's most mighty host. 
There is sweet rest, &c. 

Our Saviour will be with us, 

E'en to our journey's end, 
la every sore afliiction, 

His present help to lend. 
He never will grow weary. 

Though often we request; 
He'll give us grace to conquer, 

And take us home to rest. 
There is sweet rest, &c. 

All glory to the Father, 

Who gives us every good ; 
All glory be to Jesus, 

Who bought us with his blood; 
And glory to the Spirit, 

Who keeps us to the end ; 
To the Triune God be glory. 

The sinner's only friend. 
There is sweet rest, &c. 

The benediction was pronounced by Rev. Mr. 
Hemenway; and the form of the beloved Pastor 
was borne from its accustomed place, never to re- 

2* 



18 THE FUNERAL SERVICES. 

turn. A procession, in carriages and on foot — all 
mourners — extending in length a half mile or more, 
moved with it to the cemetery, where a hymn was 
sung, chiefly by his ministerial brethren : 

DEATH AND BURIAL OF SAINTS* 
Unveil thy bosom, faithful tomb ! 

Take this new treasure to thy trust, 
And give these sacred relics room 

To seek a slumber in the dust. 

Nor pain, nor grief, nor anxious fear, 
Invade thy bounds ; — no mortal woes 

Can reach the peaceful sleeper here. 
While angels watch the soft repose. 

So Jesus slept ; God's dying Son, 

Passe;d through the grave, and blessed the bed ; 
Rest here, blest saint ! — till, from his throne, 

The morning break, and pierce the shade. 

Break from his throne, illustrious morn ! 

Attend, earth ! his sovereign word ; 
Restore thy trust: — a glorious form 

Shall then arise to meet the Lord. 

Prayer was offered at the head of the grave, and 
benediction given by Rev. Mr. Bryant, of Niles. 
The corpse was then lowered to its final resting- 
place, on a lovely eminence in the '^ Mountain 
Home,'^ and the sad procession turned homeward. 

* Hymn 618 in the Church Psalmist. 



MEMORIAL MEETING. 



THE MEMORIAL MEETING. 



In the evening of the day on which the funeral 
services were solemnized, a meeting was held in the 
Presbyterian Church, in Kalamazoo, principally to 
give the ministers from abroad an opportunity to 
express publicly their sense of the great loss sus- 
tained by themselves and the Church, and to pre- 
sent their recollections of their deceased co-laborer. 
The meeting was numerously attended by a deeply 
interested congregation. 

Addresses were made during the evening by 
Rev. Messrs. Hoyt, Bryant, Bradley, Chapin, 
3IcCoRKLE, and G-aston; and Hon. E. C. Walker, 
of Detroit, responded briefly to an invitation to 
speak. All the addresses breathed the spirit of the 
warmest fraternal affection for the departed Pastor, 
and expressed a profound grief for the personal and 
public loss experienced in his death. Many interest- 
ing reminiscences of personal intercourse, and inci- 
dents of his ministerial and social life, werealso given. 
Near the close of the meeting. Rev. E. Taylor, 
of Kalamazoo, rose and said there were hundreds 



22 THE MEMORIAL MEETING. 

who sympathized in these utterances of sorrow, but 
who had no means of public expression for their 
feelings. As the voice of this large class, he would 
read a beautiful tribute to the memory of the de- 
ceased, which had been placed upon the threshold 
of his study that morning, by some person to him 
unknown : 

Died, March 2Sd, Rev. Wm. S. Huggins, Fas- 

tor of the Presbyterian Church, Kalamazoo. . 

The Master calleth — 
And the hands which labored patiently 
Are folded, pulseless, over the still heart 
Which loved so well. Dead on the field, 
"With all the scars in front, his harness on, 
The battle-crj still sounding — " On for God, 
And for the love of Jesus !" 
So fell our brother, leader of a host 
Whose warfare angels watched with eager hope, 
As kindly bending from their own bright home, 
Or passing swiftly as they minister 
To those who faint with toil. 

The Master calleth — 
And the dear voice which led the host 
From earth up to th' eternal throne, 
On wings of faith, in prayer, is hushed ; 
The eye, that open window of the soul. 
Beaming so bright with love and joy, is closed ; 
While all the sweet associations, 



THE MEMORIAL MEETING. 23 

Love's interchanges and life's hopes, 

Are numbered with the things that were.. 

Rest, soldier, rest. Thy sun went down at noon, 

But, as thy girded armor witnesseth, 

Thou wert ever ready for the call ; 

And the warm tears which fall like rain 

Above thee, like pearls are set within the crown 

Thy glorious Master has laid up for those 

Who, like the Gentile Teacher, fought the fight, 

And kept the faith unswerving. 

Rest, soldier, rest — thy Master called for thee. 

W. G. B. 

Eev. 0. P. HoYTj of Elkhart, Ind., added a few 
fitting remarks, and presented, as the expression of 
"ministers from the different parts of the State, 
and of various denominations,'^ the following 

RESOLUTIONS. 

Resolvedy 1. That we heartily thank our brother 
Haskell for his truthful, genial, and appreciative 
sketch of the life, character, and labors of our 
dear, departed brother, whom we have this day 
followed to his quiet home. 

Resolved J 2. That it is to us a pleasure and a 
privilege to add our most unqualified concurrence 
with that faithful delineation ; and we solicit a copy 
for preservation in some permanent and printed 



24 THE MEMORIAL MEETING. 

form, as a memorial of one whom none knew but 
to love. 

Resolved, 3. That, inadequate as any expression 
of sympathy must be to alleviate the sorrows occa- 
sioned by this great bereavement, we do, neverthe- 
less, in all the fullness of our stricken hearts, tender 
our condolence to the bereaved family of our be- 
loved brother, and also to the people of his congre- 
gation, in the faith and hope that this great sorrow 
may, " through the prayers of many," become the 
occasion of great spiritual and eternal consolation. 

The resolutions were unanimously adopted, and 
the Memorial Meeting closed with prayer by Rev. 
E. Davies, of Battle Creek. 



FUNERAL DISCOURSE, 



FUNERAL DISCOURSE. 



The pastors of the several Churches in 
Kalamazoo have for years enjoyed with 
each other most intimate fraternal asso- 
ciations. Each week we have met to- 
gether to join our prayers, to commune of 
our Christian and official experiences, to 
talk of the doctrines preached unto the 
people, and to counsel over the interests 
of religion and morals in our field. And 
in other ways much endearing social in- 
tercourse has been enjoyed between us. 

Together we have planned and con- 
ducted many Union meetings in these 
sanctuaries and places of prayer — never 
one like the present ! This week is all 
new to us. Its earliest dawn found us all 
hastening through the breaking darkness 



28 FUNERAL DISCOURSE. 

to the house of one of our number for 
whom the messenger of death had come. 
We were to go up with him towards the 
gate of Paradise, that Sabbath morning 
opening for his admission. He was abeady 
departing. We accompanied him with 
many friends, to that boundary where 
mortal feet must stop, and the spirit 
alone advance into the presence of the 
King, and there we parted hands — not 
hearts — with Brother Huggins. 

It is these close and tender associations 
that have led friends to feel that our 
broken circle may fitly be called to lead 
the funeral services for him who is taken 
from us. Most of the feelings of our 
hearts would rather have selected our 
seats with the mourners. Brother Minis- 
ters of his own denomination, who are 
here from different homes, whom he 
strongly loved, and to whom the leading 
part to-day would ordinarily have fallen, 
we are sure we shall have your sympathy 
in our service of saddened love. 



FUNERAL DISCOURSE. 29 

William Sidney Huggins was bom in 
New Haven, Conn., March 19tli, 1822, 
and consequently passed out of his fortieth 
3^ear on his sick bed a week ago to-day. 
At two years of age he was left, with two 
little brothers, fatlierless ; as his own little 
ones are to-day. But he was not a child 
to take advantage of the absence of pater- 
nal restraint. He was loving and dutiful 
to his widowed mother, and soon grew to 
be her sympathizing helper. It is not in 
the recollection of his mother that he ever 
needed correction. Toward his brothers 
he was ever kind and affectionate, never 
having with them a quarrel, and never 
willing to be out of their society. When 
in later years one of them was taken away 
by death, it planted a sorrow in his heart 
which remained tenderly sensitive through 
his whole life. As a boy of the city he 
shrunk from all vicious street associations. 
His evenings he always chose to spend at 
home, reading aloud to his mother, or 

3* 



30 FUNERAL DISCOURSE. 

otherwise gladdening the little domestic 
circle; unless, indeed, he went in that 
circle to religions or other profitable as- 
semblages. So that the counsels to boys 
and young men, as to their companion- 
ships and manner of spending evenings, 
which many of you have so often heard, 
and I think heard in his last utterances 
from this pulpit, are enforced by the happy 
experiences of his own boyhood and young 
manhood, and are embalmed now with 
your remembrances of his personal cha- 
racter as a youth. Repeatedly have I 
heard him express wonder and pain that 
boys are not seen with their parents more 
generally in our prayer and conference 
rooms, and cite his own different early 
habits, with their beneficial effects. 

At sixteen he entered Yale College, and 
graduated at twenty, with the class of 
1842. Like so many other students, his 
conversion to Christ dates from his college 
course, when the element of godliness was 



FUNERAL DISCOURSE. 31 

planted in his nature, to transform the na- 
turally amiable into the graciously holy 
young man. This change was professed 
by uniting with the Congregational Church 
in the College. 

He himself gives, in a sketch furnished 
to the Secretary of his Class, according 
to their custom, the following record of 
the way over which Providence has led 
him since his graduation : 

''Spent three years as Private Tutor in the fa- 
mily of James Hamilton Couper, Esq., Grlynn Co., 
Ga., and then three years as student in the Theo- 
logical Department of Yale College, though absent 
during the last half of 1846 on a voyage to Europe 
for the benefit of his health. He was licensed to 
preach in the summer of 1847, and after leaving 
the Seminary in 1848, preached for some months in 
Hatfield, Mass. ; but the failure of his eyes obliged 
him to decline settling there and to give up close 
application to study for nearly two years. During 
this time he spent a summer (1849) in Andover, 
Mass., and preached nearly a year in Brunswick 
Co., Va. In the years 1851 and 1852 he preached 
in various places : Natick, Mass., Reading, Pa., East 



32 FUNERAL DISCOURSE. 

iVIedway and Framingham, Mass., and for several 
months in Beloit, Wis. At length, Nov. 9th, 1852, 
he was ordained Pastor of the Congregational Chnreh 
in Whitewater, Wis. Early in 1853 an attack of 
pleurisy compelled him to give up his charge and 
for some time he remained unsettled. Sept. 26th, 
1854, he was installed Pastor of the Presbyterian 
Church in Kalamazoo, Mich." 

He was married in October, 1854, to 
Miss Mary Frances Smith, daughter of 
Hon. Judge A. D. Smith, of Milwaukee. 

His wife and four little children are left 
to mourn for one of the happiest and wisest 
of husbands and fathers. While his still 
widowed mother, with but one surviving 
son, and with the weight of three score 
years and ten, bows to receive this unex- 
pected load of sorrow, still feeling that for 
such a son " passed into the skies," she 
has vastly more reason to be thankful than 
to be mournful. 

The rest you know. "How through 
infirmity of the flesh he preached the 
Gospel unto you" until two weeks ago, 



l,v 



FUNERAL DISCOURSE, 33 

when he was seized with a violent attack 
of Typhoid Pneumonia, which drew him 
so rapidly towards the grave, that he was 
at its mouth before we were aware. Not 
sooner, however, than he was prepared, nor 
more swiftly than he was willing. When 
I said to him last Saturday, '^ Can you 
leave yourself in the hands of God and say, 
' It is the Lord, let him do as seemeth him 

good !' " his ready reply was, " Yes 

but I wish it were the end ; and no more 
pain and suffering." He could say but 
little; spoke of the difficulty of rising above 
his physical sufferings, which now oppress- 
ed and had always follow^ed him; reminded 
us of his love for us all ; wished the family 
gathered and prayer offered, and thank- 
fully gave me his fevered parting hand. 
When, the next morning, we were all 
summoned to his dying room, he request- 
ed several times our brief prayers, sup- 
pressed his short and moaning breathings 
to listen to quoted Scriptures and lines of 



.34 FUNERAL DISCOURSE:. 

loved hymns, and chimed his feeble voice 
to " Eock of Ages/' and other dying-room 
melodies which we tried to sing. He said, 
"^ It is pleasant to go down into the valley 
and go up" on the other side ; recognized 
and turned his lips to kiss mother, wife, 
and each of the children ; responded even 
playfully to the prattle of the infant, and 
said, "comfort the babies." Being re- 
minded of the Sabbath morning, and asked 
if he had anything to say for his people 
about to assemble, he said, "he had a 
great deal to say," but was satisfied with 
the thought that he had said all to them 
while in health. He struggled, however, 
to articulate such messages as, " Tell them 
to be active and zealous Christians ;" " to 
throw away the world out of their thoughts, 
and the Lord will direct their minds in all 
things ;" and requested Brother Willard, 
who was to supply the pulpit, to " call 
after service." He then sunk into appa- 
rent unconsciousness, and while we wor- 



FUNERAL DISCOURSE. 35 

shipped in our sanctuaries, he lay in silent 
and quiet breathings. Precisely at noon 
he died ; noon of the Lord's Day, March 
23d, 1862. At the noon too of a bright 
and holy Christian career, and a wide 
ministerial usefulness ; his earthly services 
ending just as the Sabbath morning ser- 
vices in the sanctuaries where he was so 
familiar, came to their end. With the 
benedictions of the many thousands of 
Israel, his spirit rose to serve in the Tem- 
ple of which the Lamb is the light. 

This event, so joyous to him and so 
grateful to his friends in its Christian as- 
pects, will yet cause a chastened but deep 
sorrow in many throughout our State, 
while it leaves in special bereavement the 
whole community in which he lived. At 
his responsible post, he has gradually 
grown in the respect, esteem and love of 
his people, and of an ever widening circle 
of friends. 

His nature was most genial, and of the 



36 FUNERAL DISCOURSE. 

highest moral tone. His abilities were 
good and most evenly balanced ; presided 
over by a judgment almost intuitively 
right and ready in its decisions^ and guided 
by an exceedingly fine and true sense of 
what is appropriate to times and circum- 
stances. His acquisitions were extensive^ 
and grew steadily more so to the last^ 
under a wisely systematized and unyield- 
ing studiousness, and a diligent practical 
use of his knowledge — habits which, 
though sorely tested by constitutional ill- 
health, by frequent severe bodily suffer- 
ings and consequent mental depressions, 
and by many and varied interruptions, 
were yet maintained with rare regularity 
and success, up to and past the assault of 
his final sickness. 

Extensive travel in this and other lands, 
and temporary residences in the different 
sections of our country, had liberaHzed his 
feelings and given a cultivated ease to his 
manners, but never blunted the edge of 



FUNERAL DISCOURSE. 37 



his sharp moral discernments and sensi- 
bilities, nor relaxed the stern precision of 
his principles and conscientious habits, nor 
displaced -his lovely modesty, that ever 
shrunk from any ostentatious display of 
his traveled and scholarly distinctions. 

His piety was that of the whole heart, 
developing itself in the whole life. It was 
not a mere sensibility, but gracious prin- 
ciple inwrought with his whole being. It 
was not natural goodness acting in re- 
ligious forms. Though of this few possess 
more, of it few make so little account in 
estimating Christian character. He held 
himself bound to find gracious experiences 
in his daily inner life, and often called 
himself to account, and made humbling 
confessions to God and with his Christian 
companions, that these experiences were 
so indistinct and feeble. And before his 
abased self he loved to bring the exalted 
Saviour, and say with trustful fondness, 

" Simply to Thy Cross I cling." 



3B FUNEKAL DISCOURSE. 

His piety was uniformly and eminent- 
ly active. No man amongst us had a 
livelier or more tireless sympathy with 
every form of going about and doing good; 
and none has had feet more willing and 
wonted in treading these daily rounds of 
beneficence. Alas, that their coming will 
be waited for in vain henceforth : by the 
children of sorrow, of poverty, and of 
awakened religious interest ; by the stran- 
ger in our gates, the young men in our 
streets, and shops, and stores, and homes ; 
by the aged and the children, the wan- 
derers from Christ's fold, and the lost in 
the dark world. 

Nor was he satisfied with a personal 
activity in himself. The burden of the 
Lord upon him was that all Christians 
should be workers in the vineyard. For 
this he prayed, and conversed, and plan- 
ned, and plead; elaborating schemes of 
beneficence for individuals and for the 
Church and Society, through which the 



FUNERAL DISCOURSE. 39 

seed could be sown beside all waters, 
from those by our own doors to those in 
the far deserts of heathenism. 

As a preacher he was Scriptural, appro- 
priate, practical, and earnest. His aim 
was the conversion of the impenitent, and 
the holiness of the regenerate. Simply 
to entertain an audience through an ap- 
pointed service was in his view a prostitu- 
tion of the momentous work with which 
the preacher is charged of God. Merely 
to render a people intelligent in Bible and 
Christian knowledge, though he labored 
in this so hard and well, he conceived of 
as but a means to the preacher's end, not 
the end itself. It was the heart and the 
life that he was after, not the pleased 
crowd, at ease in their sins, whatever of 
worldly advantages they might proffer. 
It was heart and hand knowledge that he 
sought to impart, not mere head know- 
ledge. Hence he was faithful. If he ever 
misjudged as to what ought to be preach- 



40 FUNERAL DISCOURSE. 

ed, he never hesitated to preach what he 
thought ought to be preached. And to 
this he added the higher and rarer faith- 
fulness of speaking the truth in love ; with 
every just consideration for the feelings 
of those whom the truth might condemn, 
coupled with fidelity to their souls, and to 
the cause of God. So that nothing but 
misapprehension or perversity itself could 
take offense. 

In short, our calmest judgment could 
ever join with our warm affection and say 
to him, what we believe our Master would 
apply, " Beloved, thou doest faithfully 
whatsoever thou doest." 

I have not drawn this sketch from fancy, 
but with the living original continually 
before me, and compelling myself to use 
only truthful colors. I am glad to find it 
resembling one shown me this morning 
from the hand of an older friend, and one 
in some relations more intimate — his class 
and room-mate in College, Hon. E. C. 



FUNERAL DISCOURSE. 41 

Walker, Esq., of Detroit. You will be 
grateful for the following passages which 
I read from his letter : 

'' He entered Yale College in 1838, and graduat- 
ed in a class numbering a hundred and five, in 
1842. He was a contemporary in College witli 
Donald G. Mitchell, (' Ike Marvel,') Richard Storrs 
Willis, and Rev. A. Eldridge, of Detroit; and a 
class-mate of Profs. Hadley and J. A. Porter, now 
of Yale College, and G-en'l Runyon, of New Jersey, 
and Rev. A. H. Clapp, of Providence. He gra- 
duated with high honorfs. He was a universal fa- 
vorite in his class. His scholarship was not, like 
that of many, in some special department; but his 
intellect was roundly and fully developed, and every 
department of science and literature received hi? 
attention, and aided to make the thorough student. 
I think his most distinguishing characteristic in 
College was his elegant and graceful style of com- 
position, which was always, to my mind, his charm- 
ing characteristic as a preacher. 

* * ^^In Georgia he formed many friendships 
which ended only with his life. His summers were 
spent at the plantation on St. Simond's Island, and 
the rest of the year upon the upland. His letters to 
me during this period are full of pleasant sketches 
4* 



42 FUNERAL DISCOURSE. 

of his every day life. Having tte ministry in 
view, he entered at once into his Master's ser- 
vice, and devoted himself to the good of the 
colored population about him; with the aid and 
sympathy of Judge Couper, whom he always de- 
scribed as a thoroughly educated and polished gen- 
tleman and scholar. He saw slavery in its happiest 
lights, yet came home with a quiet but decided 
opinion that it was the curse of the white man of 
the South ; and in the late struggles of our country 
this experience of his youth only deepened and made 
clear the currents of his patriotism. 

* * ^^ His southern residence seemed to have 
undermined his constitution, and ever since his 
health has been precarious, never robust. 

* ^ "He was a thoroughly earnest, sincere 
man and Christian. He labored for souls, and not 
as a hireling for outward prosperity and the mere 
triumphs of success. In his last letter to me, dated 
March 6th, 1862, he yearned over his people, as a 
father over his first born son. '■ Oh Lord, revive 
thy work,' was on his pen and in his heart. His 
merits as a pastor, to us who looked at him from 
without his congregation, were those of a practical 
kind, that succeeded in accomplishing results, in 
moulding his church and building it up in every 
good word and work. His church had become one 
of the most systematically liberal and benevolent 



FUNERAL DISCOURSE. 43 

churches in the State. His pulpit powers were of 
a high order, and had God spared his health and 
life, there was no church in the land that might 
not be proud of such a pastor and such a preacher. 
His social and domestic virtues you doubtless appre- 
ciate and admire. My house was his home in De- 
troit, and his agreeable manners and gentlemanly 
deportment to all, won the respect of all who met 
him. He is a loss to the ministry in Michigan, 
which, I fear, will not soon be supplied. 

^'He was a Presbyterian from conviction and 
from choice, but was no sectarian, and was always 
ready to give the right hand of fellowship to any 
m'an or body of men who approached him in the 
name and with the spirit of Christ." * * * 

Such being the man whom God has per- 
mitted you for nearly eight years to pos- 
sess as your Pastor, afflicted people of his 
charge, what account think you will He 
require as to your improvement of the 
precious gift? While we all as a com- 
munity are debtors, how great is the 
claim which has run up in your account ! 

If you will allow of a text at the end 



44 FUNERAL DISCOURSE. 

of my address, I have one which I wish 
to print in your hearts beside the likeness 
of this dear servant which you are hence- 
forth to bear there — a text which, I hap- 
pen to know, w^as well understood by your 
Pastor, and employed to bring to him 
sympathy from an Apostle in glory, in 
times when earthly sympathies were in- 
sufiicient. 

This text occurs in the second chapter 
of the Epistle to the Philippians ; where 
the Apostle Paul most affectionately urge's 
those for whom he was laboring to so live 
that he might rejoice in the Day of Christ 
that he had not run in vain, neither la- 
bored in vain, and then at the close of his 
exhortations breaks forth in these strong 
words : 

"Yea, and if I be offered upon the 

SACRIFICE AND SERVICE OF YOUR FAITH, I JOY 
AND REJOICE WITH YOU ALL." 

In what would Paul joy and rejoice ? 
It is told us in his Jewish way, and needs 



FUNERAL DISCOURSE. 45 

simply this exjoosition : When, in the an- 
cient Sanctuary service, the victim for a 
burnt offering had been prepared, the care- 
fully dressed parts of the animal being 
laid upon the altar, and the fire beneath 
them enkindled, then the Priest stood be- 
side the offering, and poured upon it a 
libation, of choicest wine and purest oil, 
mingled v^ith fine flour, whence a rich 
fragrance, emitted by the burning flame, 
went up as a symbol of Jehovah's pleased 
acceptance of the sacrifice. Now the sac- 
rifice which the Apostle sought to offer 
before God was that of a holy, practical 
faith in the people of his care : a faith that 
should not be a creed of the head, but a 
state and habit of the soul; turning it 
trustingly and lovingly Godward, purify- 
ing from all sin through the blood of 
Christ, warming with steady life all holy 
activities, and shining strongly in the 
world with the lighted truths of all Scrip- 
ture. Such worth, in Paul's account, had 



46 FUNERAL DISCOURSE. 

this gracious faith, as constituting its pos- 
sessor a receiver and disburser of all 
spiritual and useful gifts, that he would 
gladly sacrifice his life, if necessary, in 
helping men to attain and perfect it in 
their inner and outer lives. Striving to 
present it as an offering to God, he would 
joyfully be not only the ministering priest, 
but the consuming libation also ; pouring 
out his life in labors, or privations, or 
martyrdom, that believers might be mul- 
tiplied and made holy in character and 
useful in the world. This Paul was will- 
ing to do, and this it fell to him to do. 

Need I say that William S. Huggins 
came into closer sympathy with Paul, as 
here seen, than most ministers come? 
God's providence brought him there, as it 
brought Paul there. In counting the cost 
of his service for you, his people, he had 
to include his life itself. His state of 
health made it impossible for him to serve 
you well without, more literally than any 



FUNERAL DISCOURSE. 47 

other man I have known, pourmg out his 
life in the service,/row^ iveeh to week. Every 
Sabbath night found the fountains of his 
vitality drained almost to the bottom. 
Then two nights and days of prostration, 
with the aching head and the deathly 
sickness, yet not in idleness, and, the 
vital reservoirs beginning to fill again, he 
returned to stay by the altar of service 
and pour there anew the costly libation. 

And though this w^as the cost, did he 
not serve you well? Did he slight his 
work, in the pulpit or the parish? Did 
he, even as frequently as he ought, re- 
lieve himself of its burden for a week or 
a day, or a single service, so fearful was 
he that it might suffer from his absence 
or his enjoyment of relief in the pulpit? 

And did he not rejoice in his service, 
notwithstanding it was thus constantly 
draining off his life? Did any one ever 
hear him complain of the hardships of the 
ministry, or covet the easier allotments 



48 FUNERAL DISCOURSE. 

in life ? "I will very gladly spend and 
be spent for you," was language which 
his fear of boasting may never have allow- 
ed you to hear him appropriate to himself, 
but which, in the home-ear of his nearest 
earthly friend, was often spoken. 

Yes, let me tell you how this labored 
yet joyful sacrifice of his life for your sal- 
vation and Christian usefulness had so be- 
come the habit of his being, that it was 
the most prominent feature in his dying 
scene. When his thoughts were left to 
himself, they seemed constantly laboring 
at the wonted tasks and cares of his minis- 
try. '' I am in perplexity" — " There are 
two points" — " I can go no further" — " I 
am sick" — "Who will preach next Sab- 
bath?" In such fragments of sentences, 
the whole of which he could not articulate, 
we were affected in seeing how in ima- 
gination he was toiling on in the study, 
the pulpit, and the solicitudes of a faith- 
ful pastor : draining off the last drops of 



FUNERAL DISCOURSE. 49 

life upon " the sacrifice and service of 
your faith." 

And where has he not shown the same 
spirit? How he knit his whole life to 
your whole life, and spent himself in 
struggles to rise and bear you up to the 
higher Christian life ! Your social life 
and home life, your business life and civil 
life, your public interests of common and 
higher education, and all true reform and 
advancement in society, — he has woven 
himself with it all, and plied his strength 
unsparingly for its elevation. Into how 
many places he had thus wrought himself 
we but partly know as yet. We shall 
learn as we find the vacancies whence he 
is now withdrawn. It will be long before 
we find the last of them, or fill the first. 

Ah, my afflicted friends, if from such a 
libation, poured upon the altar of your 
spiritual welfare, there do not arise sweetly 
to God a savor of life, what a savor of 
death there must go up ! that this pre- 



50 FUNERAL DISCOURSE. 

cious outpoured life might now kindle 
upon you from the fire of the Holy Ghost, 
in flames of a new and holy devotement ! 

I have wished for a moment that your 
dear Pastor could have lived to see the 
one more ingathering towards which the 
tokens among you have been pointing, and 
his soul so eagerly pressing. That the 
enlarged and more solemnly attentive 
audiences might, as a harvest of souls, 
have ripened and been garnered under his 
eye, and we have seen his joy, as we have 
seen it in the harvests of the past. But 
the Lord of the field and the laborers 
knows best, and has not made our brother 
a loser by calling him to the Father's 
House. 

Nor is it too late for you yet to minister 
that joy to him in Heaven, which he was 
not permitted to see on earth. Some of 
us — who first the Master knoweth — shall 
soon go up and rejoin our departed friend. 
Would it not be pleasant, for the one thus 



FUNERAL DISCOURSE. 51 

next honored, to be a bearer of despatches 
to him that many whom he had sought as 
lost, are found ? That many dead, over 
whom he wept, are alive ; and that the 
people of God, for whose holy living he 
struggled to the last, are all " zealous and 
active" amid the sheaves ? 

The joy of Paul in Heaven is not yet 
at the highest degree of the scale, though 
filling all his capacities as it ascends. 
^^ The day of Christ" has yet to reveal to 
him how far he has not "run in vain, 
neither labored in vain," and thus raise 
his rejoicings to far warmer heights. 

And so, thank God, the beloved servant, 
whose form rests sweetly here, w^here it 
has so often trembled in weariness and sick- 
ness, and whose spirit is now completely 
blessed, may yet, from new arrivals in 
Paradise, and from the great all-revealing 
Day, have his joy raised higher and higher 
through the faithfulness of you who are 
in Christ, and the salvation of you who 



52 FUNERAL DISCOURSE. 

ai'e out of Christ. may it be his, with 
Christ and through Christ, to see of the 
travail of Christ's soul, of which he has 
been here a partaker, and be satisfied, as 
an humble partaker in Christ's eternal 
satisfaction ! 

With these words, and especially the 
words of the text to which I have cited 
you, pressed strongly upon your hearts, 
as the interpreter to you of your Pastor's 
life, and the preacher to you from his 
grave, I count my present duty done. 

The mourning have many to sympathize 
with and counsel them, some of whom may 
more fitly than myself assume that office. 
And the less public will be the more suit- 
able occasions for our utterances to them : 
so heavily afflicted, yet already, and we 
trust ever to be, so abundantly sustained 
and peacefully comforted. May God bless 
in this bereavement the family and bosom 
friends, the Church, the ministry, and our 
stricken community ! 



®hr« Sermons to goung dUcn. 



5* 



1, 



THE BIBLE THE YOUNG MAN'S 
HAND-BOOK. 

PREACHED SABBATH EVENING, FEB. 2, 1862 * 



PSALM CXIX: 9. 



*' Wherewithal shall a yotjxg max cleanse his way? 
By taking heed thereto, according to thy Word.'' 

When the traveler is leaving London 
for the Continent; he makes up his mind 
whither he will go, and seeks for infor- 
mation as to the best routes and the most 
desirable modes of travelinD\ He soon 
finds that hand-books have been prepared. 
each with special reference to some one 
or more of the countries which he pro- 

• Published in pamphlet form soon after, by request 
of a number of young men of the congregation. 



56 SERMON TO YOUNG MEN. 

poses to visit. He provides himself with 
these, glad to get such reliable guides, 
and not to be dependent upon the uncer- 
tain information which he might seek or 
find upon the way. 

But when it is simply "the way of 
life " along which the traveler is journey- 
ing, he generally either asks no questions, 
or asks only such as pertain to matters of 
subordinate importance. He neglects to 
inquire what kind of road it is he has set 
out upon, what direction it takes, to 
what liabilities it is subject, and toward 
what particular point it tends. 

Fortunately, these questions are asked 
for him, and the same kind Providence 
which has asked them, has answered them. 
They are summed up in the words of the 
text : " Wherewithal shall a young man 
cleanse his way? By taking heed thereto, 
according to thy Word." The question 
is asked with special reference to youth, 
because it needs to be asked and answered 



SERMON TO YOUNG MEN. 57 

in advance of manhood and age, and be- 
cause, if the answer is not heard and 
heeded during youth, in a majority of 
cases it might as well never have been 
answered. 

In accordance with the question and 
answer of the text, let me to-night com- 
mend to you, especially to such of 
you as are young, the Bible as the 
" Hand-book " of ^- this way of life." I 
say commend it, for I could not force 
it upon you if I would. It is your pre- 
rogative to accept or reject whatever 
counsel may be given to you; to believe 
or disbelieve whatever guide-boards you 
may read, and whatever words you may 
hear, as you pursue this way; to trust to 
the whims and impressions and impulses 
of each passing day, or to make the Bible 
from this time forth the Hand-book for 
your journey. This is your prerogative, 
and no one would take it away from you. 
Yet at the same time it is the privilege of 



58 SERMON TO YOUNG MEN. 

those of us who believe in the Bible, and 
believe in it as a book to be followed as 
well as possessed, to ask you candidly to 
weigh its claims in the light of certain 
facts which concern you and all of us. 

Let me to-night call your attention to 
three such facts. 

I. And first, let me remind you that 
God made you for a liefinite end, and that 
end was His own glory and your highest 
good. 

In Paul's Epistle to the Romans we 
read : '^ For of him, and through him, and 
to him are all things, to whom be glory 
forever." In the book of Proverbs we 
read that " the Lord hath made all things 
for himself." So also in the Epistle to 
Colossians : "' All things were created by 
him and for him." And in the first of 
Peter : " That God in all things may be 
glorified through Jesus Christ." 

Paul's exhortation to the Corinthians 



SERMON TO YOUNG MEN. 59 

points us to the great end of our being: 
" Whether ye eat or drink, or whatsoever 
ye do, do all to the glory of God." 

There is danger, however, especially 
with the young, that this language will 
be misunderstood; that the "glory of 
God " will be little more than an abstract 
idea, true enough, perhaps, as a theoreti- 
cal end of living, and an end for theolo- 
gians to talk about, but not a practical 
end, within the familiar range of one's 
every-day vision. Hence our Catechism 
has very happily added a phrase, in de- 
fining what " man's chief end " is ; it is 
" to glorify God, and to enjoy him for- 
ever." This brings out the important 
truth that we have a partnership with 
God in the end for which we were made. 
We were not only made for his glory, but 
for our own enjoyment; and his glory in- 
cludes and comprehends our highest en- 
joyment, if we will only have it so. And 
there is another interesting truth included 



60 SERMON TO YOUNG MEN. 

here, which may be a little more fully ex- 
pressed. It is this, that the '^ chief end" 
for which man was made was not only 
that he should enjoy God forever, but 
that God should enjoy him forever. It 
was for mutual enjoyment. 

When " God saw every thing that He 
had made, and behold, it was very good," 
is it not meant that there was in it all a 
good for Him, as well as for birds and 
beasts, and the human pair, and for 
angels ] and especially that a gratification 
and a glory were to be derived from those 
whom He had created in his own image ? 

God's glory, then, for which we are to 
live and labor, is not an abstract idea, a 
cold logical or theological conclusion, like 
the conclusion of a mathematical demon- 
stration. God's blessedness is included 
in His glory, and our happiness also. 
When reminded, therefore, that God made 
you for a definite end, do not fail to see 
that this purposed end was a mutual good, 
and a mutual glory. 



SERMON TO YOUNG MEN. 61 

How desirable, now, that this purposed 
end should be fulfilled in the case of every 
one of you ! God desires it. The angels 
would say that you ought to desire it. 
And Grod not only desires it, but from the 
beginning He has been doing all he con- 
sistently could to secure it. The most 
important of the instrumentalities which 
He is employing for this purpose is the 
Bible. 

More than fifteen hundred years in 
process of preparation ; the product, under 
the guidance of the Spirit, of more than 
thirty different writers, and made up, in 
beautiful combination and wonderful har- 
mony, of history and poetry and prophe- 
cy, of biographies and parables, of pre- 
cepts and promises, of descriptions of this 
world and of the world to come, its one, 
great, comprehensive aim is to teach you 
the chief end for which God made you, 
and to teach you how to fulfill that end. 

See, now, how miserably man, without 



62 SERMON TO YOUNG MEN. 

the Bible, misses this end. Look at the 
South Sea Islander, and the Bushmen of 
South Africa ! Bead the first chapter of 
Paul's Epistle to the Bomans, and re- 
member that that fearful description of 
those who know not God, and glorify 
Him not as God, applies not only with 
striking accuracy, as all missionaries tes- 
tify, to those whom we commonly call the 
heathen, but to the most enlightened pa- 
gan nations — to all among whom the light 
of the Bible does not shine. Individuals 
may be discovered here and there, who 
stand somewhat above the common level 
of idolatry and ignorance and degrada- 
tion ; but they, if they raise the question 
as to the chief end of man, grope in the 
dark in their search to find it. 

But we need not go to the ends of the 
earth, or to the far-off nations of culti- 
vated paganism. See how miserably man 
misses this end, even amid all the restrain- 
ing influences of a Christian civilization, 



SERMON TO YOUNG MEN. 63 

when he throws away his Bible and casts 
off all fear of God. In every Christian 
community of any considerable numbers, 
there are multitudes of men whose mo- 
tives and whose end in life are not one 
whit higher than those of the heathen. 
What is their goal — I do not say their 
goal of life, for they do not give dignity 
to their career by any forethought of a 
lifetime — but what is the goal of each 
day's little round ? The lowest forms of 
sensual indulgence, amid the most dis- 
gusting associations. The end for which 
they live is no higher than that of the 
brute, and in stooping to such an end, a 
man degrades himself below the brute. 

man, how hast thou fallen, and on 
how low a level thou every day dost 
walk, and to what low depths dost stoop, 
in worse than " beastly drink," in vulgar 
and obscene and heaven-defying talk, and 
in practices most foul and full of outrage 
upon the very name of man ! 



64 SERMON TO YOUNG MEN. 

But there are multitudes besides, who 
would shrink from the thought of being 
identified with this low and lustful 
and almost hopeless class, and whom, as 
yet, thanks to the gracious influences 
around them, we are not obliged to clas- 
sify with these, who are nevertheless 
identified with them to this extent, that 
they are in the same broad road, and that 
they are missing life's great end. And 
he who simply misses the one path that 
leads to the mountain's summit, where 
shelter and rest await the traveler; he 
who simply misses the one path when the 
storm is gathering and the night is coming 
on, what will his end be, no matter whe- 
ther the last you saw of him was only a 
little way off the road, or half-way down 
some steep declivity ? 

To lose sight of life's great end is to 
lose the way to happiness and heaven. 
The man at the wheel might as well ne- 
glect to look at the compass, and under- 



SERMON TO YOUNG MEN. 65 

take to steer by the bowsprit. And yet 
it is to just this that our nature is ex- 
tremely liable — to neglect to determine 
upon any life-long course, to leave the 
chart unrolled in the chest, to steer by 
the desire that is uppermost and that 
'•heads "us, whether this way or that; 
to use eye and ear and tongue and hand 
and foot, mind and body, without end 
and aim ; sight-seeing, novel-reading, card- 
playing, news-gathering, tattling, dancings 
handling toys and busy with trifles, in- 
stead of handling the implements of life's 
work, and wielding the weapons of life's 
warfare for glory and for good. 

What multitudes there are — and oh 
how easily the young are recruited to fill 
their ranks ! — what multitudes who seem 
to live only to laugh and talk, to walk and 
ride, to escape being alone and to go into 
company, to repeat jokes and scandal, 
to see showy trifles and to hear and tell 
some new thing, or from day to day re- 

6* 



66 SERMON TO YOUNG MEN. 

peat the same stale things, to eat and 
drink and dress, though not perhaps to 
sleep, until night is turned into day, and 
mind and body are wearied with unnatu- 
ral use. Not that all the items of this 
catalogue are wholly wrong in themselves ; 
but to live only for this — how w^ide of the 
mark which Heaven has set before each 
deathless soul ! 

I heard it said the other day, that it 
was the recent remark of a gentleman, 
whose opportunities for judging had not 
been limited, that " there are not half a 
dozen young men in this community who 
are living with any end in view !" I do 
not say that I believe this. On the con- 
trary, I should say at once that the state- 
ment was an exaggerated one, though I 
do not know how great or how little the 
exaggeration was; but I repeat the re- 
mark as justifying me, if justification be 
needed, in thus urging the point upon 
you, that God made you for a definite 



SERMON TO YOUNG MEN. 67 

end. I repeat it, because it is sometimes 
well that we should know^ what others 
say of us ; because it may be well that 
the young men in our shops and stores 
and offices, in our homes and upon our 
streets, should know what judgment 
business men are forming of them. If 
it is a slander, you need not fear it, 
and there may be a salutary warning in 
it; and if it is not a slander, it may 
set you to thinking, and sober thought 
and the Word of God may bring before 
you life's great end, and the result may 
be repentance and reformation, God's 
glory and your present and eternal good. 

Liable thus, as you especially are who 
are surrounded by the attractions and 
subject to the impulses of youth, to for- 
get, to lose sight of, to miss the great end 
of life, let me urge you to take heed to 
your way — to its direction, and to the end 
toward which it is tending — according to 
God's Word. Let me urge you to make 



68 SERMON TO YOUNG MEN. 

the Bible the guide of your youth ; the 
counsels of the Bible, rather than the ex- 
ample and the tempting suggestions or 
taunts of your companions ; the teachings 
of this Word of God, I must add with 
pain, rather than the example of some 
who profess to be the people of God ! 

II. Let me remind you, secondly, not 
only that you are made for a definite and 
high end, which you are so liable to for- 
get or lose sight of, but that with this 
end distinctly in view, left to your un- 
aided self, you will never seriously pursue 
it; that resolve, and even strive as you 
may, to do so, you will find that you are 
at war with yourself, or you will be at 
war with yourself, whether you find it 
out or not; that your own nature will 
hinder and successfully oppose all your 
attempts at true progress and real eleva- 
tion ; that a secret foe in your own breast 
will deceive you and turn you aside, or 



SERMON TO YOUNG MEN. 69 

turn you back to your eternal ruin ; and 
that with this fact and the philosoj)h2/ of it, 
the Bible, and the Bible alone, acquaints 
you ; that against this secret foe the Bible, 
and the Bible alone, will faithfully warn 
you and arm you, and successfully aid 
you and giA^e you the victory. 

Perhaps I cannot more successfully tell 
you just what I mean than by quoting a 
passage from a popular English author, 
who writes especially for boys and young 
men, and has had the credit of speaking 
to them in a true and wise and manly 
way. I the more readily avail myself of 
his language, because it did not originate 
with the pulpit. It is not simply profes- 
sional, as you might regard the utterances 
of the minister. It is not a formal expo- 
sition of Scripture doctrine, against which 
you might be prejudiced. It is an earn- 
est man's setting forth of a fact which he 
discovers in him.self, and which, as a phi- 
losophic observer, he comes in contact 



70 SERMON TO YOUNG MEN. 

with, out in the world, as he studies 
men.* 

Two young men stand fronting one an- 
other, "the younger," who in his heart 
is secretly meditating, though half uncon- 
sciously, a great wrong toward which his 
passions are strongly drifting him — a 
wrong which his older companion, acting 
the part of a true friend, has just honestly 
but somewhat bluntly rebuked — " the 
younger, writhing with a sense of shame 
and outraged pride, and longing for a 
fieizce answer" to language he has just 
uttered — '^ a fierce answer, or a blow, any- 
thing to give vent to the furies which 
were tearing him." 

They soon part, and the younger is 
striding up and down by himself in the 
pale moonlight. 

^^ Poor fellow I it was no pleasant walking ground 
for him. Shall we follow him up and down in his 
tramp ? We have most of us walked the like 

^^ Tom Brown at Oxford, Vol. I., 252. 



SERMON TO YOUNG MEN. 71 

marches, I suppose, at one time or another in our 
lives. The memory of them is by no means one 
which we can dwell on with pleasure. Times they 
were of blinding and driving storm and howling 
winds, out of which voices, as of evil spirits, spoke 
close in our ears — tauntingly, temptingly, whisper- 
ing to the mischievous wild beast which lurks in 
the bottom of all our hearts, now, ' Rouse up ! art 
thou a man and darest not do this thing?' now, 
^Eise, kill and eat; it is thine, wilt thou not 
eat it ? Shall the flimsy scruples of this teacher, 
or the sanctified cant of that, bar thy way and balk 
thee of thine own ? Thou hast strength ; brave 
them — brave all things in earth, or heaven, or hell ; 
put out thy strength, and be a man !' Then did 
not the wild beast within us shake itself and feel 
its power, sweeping away all the ' Thou shalt nots/ 
which the law wrote up before us in letters of fire, 
with the ^I iviW of hardy, godless self assertion ? 
And all the while — which alone made the storm 
more dreadful to us — was there not the still, small 
voice, never to be altogether silenced by the roar- 
ings of the tempest of passion, by the evil voices, 
by our own violent attempts to stifle it ; the still, 
small voice appealing to the man, the true man 
within us, which is made in the image of God, call- 
ing on him to assert his dominion over the wild 



72 SERMON TO YOUNG MEN. 

beast — to obej, and conquer, and live ? Ay ! and 
though we may have followed the other voices, have 
we not, while following them, confessed in our 
hearts that all true strength and nobleness and 
manliness was to be found in the other path ? Do 
I say that most of us have had to tread the path, and 
fight this battle ? Surely, I might have said all of 
us ; all at least who have passed the bright days of 
their boyhood. The keen and clear intellect, no 
less than the dull and heavy ; the weak, the cold, 
the nervous, no less than the strong and passionate 
of body. The arms and the field have been di- 
verse ; can have been the same, I suppose, to no 
two men, but the battle must have been the same 
to all. One here and there may have had a fore- 
taste of it as a boy ; but it is the young man's bat- 
tle, and not the boy's, thank Grod for it ! That 
most hateful and fearful of all realities, call it by 
what name we will — self, the natural man, the old 
Adam — must have risen up before each of us in 
early manhood, if not sooner, challenging the true 
man within us, to which the Spirit of God is speak- 
ing, to a struggle for life or death. 

" Grird yourself, then, for the fight, my young 
brother, and take up the pledge which was made for 
you when you were a helpless child. This world 
and all others, time and eternity, for you hang upon 



SERMON TO YOUNG MEN. 73 

the issue. This enemy must be met and vanquish- 
ed — not finally, for no man, while on earth, I sup- 
pose, can say that he is slain; but when once known 
and recognized, met and vanquished he must be, 
by God's help, in this and that encounter, before 
you can be truly called a man; before you can 
really enjoy any one even of this world's good 
things.'^ 

" Met and vanquished/' he says, " by 
God's help/' — by God's help, if met and 
vanquished at all. Now, in this conflict, 
how does God, propose to help us ? By his 
Word and through the Holy Spirit, and in 
answer to our cries for help. Concerning 
the character of this secret foe, and the 
realities and possibilities of this inward 
warfare, the Bible is our only competent 
instructor and counselor and helper. 

It gives us the information which we 
need ; it puts us upon our guard ; it gives 
us timely exhortation and encouragement ; 
it rebukes our unconcern and lack of vig- 
ilance ; it prompts the needful prayer for 
help ; above all, it brings us to Jesus, if 



74 SERMON TO YOUNG MEN. 

we will only follow where it would lead 
us — to Jesus, the great Captain of Salva- 
tion. He is ^^a stronger" than the "strong 
man armed" within us, and He alone can 
enable us to cripple and subdue him. 
Hence it is that the Bible is commended 
to us in the question and answer of the 
text, though under a different figure from 
that which I have used. Sin is viewed 
as a defiler rather than as an armed foe ; 
and either view is lamentably true. Sin 
is a defiler. It pollutes our hearts; it 
defiles our character. It makes our way 
of life unclean. To him who sees his own 
heart and life under the full light of 
God's truth and Spirit, the sight is a loath- 
some one, and his way of life, if he has 
followed the tendencies of his nature, 
shocks him and disgusts him. How must 
it look to angels and to the all-seeing eye 
of perfect purity ? And the question of 
the text is concerning " the young man.'' 
It does not take long for sin to make 



SERMON TO YOUNG MEN. 75 

the way of life unclean. Its work is the 
more apparent, and it shocks ns the more, 
as we see it in early manhood and early 
womanhood ; for there is a native beauty 
and promise, and apparent innocence 
about the freshness of youth. Upon such 
a background the shadings and dark blots 
and foul marks of sin are painfully 
striking. And often how rapidly they 
spread, and how dark their stain, and how 
foul their aspect, even before bright boy- 
hood and beautiful girlhood are fairly out 
from under the father's hand and the mo- 
ther's eye ! How often the young man 
has secrets which he would not have his 
father, which he would blush to have his 
sister know ! How often the young wo- 
man has and cherishes secret thoughts 
and feelings which far from conform to 
the pure example and prudent counsels of 
her Christian mother ! How often books 
are carefully secreted, and read with a 
blush, and a loose rein given to the ima- 



76 SERMON TO YOUNG MEN. 

gination, and conduct carefully covered 
up ! How painful it is to witness the 
confidence of fathers and mothers in their 
sons and daughters, when to observant 
eyes there is a worm already in the bud. 
and when it is only falsehood that gives 
to it its seeming beauty and promise ! Oh 
how true it is that the way even of the 
young needs to be cleansed ! And how" 
may it be done ? By taking heed to his 
Word. A wonderful counselor for the 
young is the Bible ! More kind and more 
faithful, often, than you will find father 
or mother, or the best friend you may 
have. If every young man and woman 
would make the single Book of Proverbs 
their counselor, how many would it save 
from sad mistakes and bitter regrets ; how 
many from disgrace and ruin ! 

III. But let me remind you, thirdly, 
though time warns me that it must be 
briefly, that you have more than yourself 



SERMON TO YOUNG MEN. 77 

to contend with — this heart, this evil na- 
ture, this old Adam within us — though 
this should be enough to put every one 
on his guard ; insubordination in the camp, 
treachery in the citadel, is bad enough; 
but more than this, that you are in an 
enemy's country, and all along your way 
you are surrounded by temptations and 
by tempters to evil. 

The Apostle Peter says, " Be sober, be 
vigilant, because your adversary, the 
devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, 
seeking whom he may devour." And 
Peter had had some experience of that 
of which he speaks. Jesus had once put 
him on his guard, saying, " Simon, Simon, 
Satan hath desired to have you, that he 
may sift you as wheat; but I have prayed 
for thee, that thy faith fail not." And 
Judas Iscariot was what he was, because 
Satan had " entered into him." 

I know that men make a jest of this, 
and that this fearful name is simply made 

7* 



78 SERMON TO YOUNG MEN. 

a convenience of, for rounding off a vul- 
gar speech; but here it is, in the Bible, in 
the Old Testament and in the New, and 
on the authority of the Son of God. It 
is a fearful fact, and all the more fearful 
that we are so unmindful of it, that in the 
fall of man, Satan, the great adversary of 
truth and righteousness, the arch-deceiver 
and the soul's destroyer, gained a hold, 
temporary it is true, but a real hold upon 
this world ; and he reigns here, with a 
broken sceptre indeed, but still a power- 
ful one. And the world is full of his 
emissaries and servants. Whether they 
are consciously laboring to promote his 
ends, or his unconscious tools, as we will 
presume they generally are, their name 
is legion. They throng the way of life 
which you are treading. Some of them 
are just ahead of you, and many of these, 
probably, are objects of your admiration ; 
and some are just behind you, and you 
are conscious that their eyes are fastened 



SERMON TO YOUNG MEN. 79 

upon you, though you are forgetful, per- 
haps, of the All-seeing Eye ; and they are 
all around you, not consciously, perhaps, 
nor maliciously 3"our enemies, but never- 
theless your injurers and your destroyers, 
if not on your guard. They may be 
pleasant companions, and you may think 
them safe ; or if you suspect that they 
are not altogether what they ought to 
be, you may intend to be upon your 
guard, and you doubtless feel abundantly 
able to take care of yourself. But the 
young do not know one another, and they 
do not know themselves. How little, in 
many cases, the young woman knows of 
the character of the men with whom she 
trusts herself! How little young men 
know the character of those with whom 
they associate ! We are easily flattered 
by a little attention which others may 
pay us. It is not always easy to avoid 
their approaches. To the youth it seems 
a great step towards manhood to be ad- 



80 SERMON TO YOUNa MEN. 

mitted into a circle of young men a little 
older than himself; and it may be regard- 
ed as a lack of manhood to be in anything 
at all behind those of his own years. He 
does not like to appear singular. He does 
not like to be laughed at. The laugh of 
even a silly companion often has a power 
before which strong resolutions and sacred 
promises go down like grass before the 
mower's scythe. The truth is, that the 
heart within — this nature, often so sla- 
vishly fearful, so sensitive, so vacillating, 
so cowardly, so vain, so proud, so obsti- 
nate, so deceitful, so blind — the heart 
within is in league with these tempters 
without, and between the two, oh how 
great the danger, when the young man or 
the young woman goes out from beneath 
the shelter and the restraining influences 
of home into the wide, wide world ! Nay, 
how great the danger, in places like this 
— though places, after all, are very much 
ahke — how great the danger, in spite of 



SERMON TO YOUXa MEN. 81 

parental influences and the restraints of 
home ; though the difficulty in part may 
be, that parental influence is not what it 
should be, and that the restraints of home 
are few and feeble. But under all cir- 
cumstances, between appetite and passion 
and weakness within, and the temptations 
which everywhere lurk without, how great 
the danger ! Let a young man get only 
so far away from home as the door of the 
saloon, under the lead of two or three 
companions, and how great his danger ! 
Let him be invited, amid flattering sur- 
roundings, to take his first game of cards; 
is he not in great danger? Smile not, 
my hearer, at the idea of danger, because 
you may have played many a game, and 
are not yet a gambler. Could we sum- 
mon witnesses here, tales might be told 
that would appal you. Let impure books 
be put into the young man's hand, and by 
companions who stand ready to ridicule 
any boyish squeamishness which he may 



82 SERMON TO YOUNG MEN. 

show^ and is he not in great danger ? Let 
him be invited to take " a social glass," 
amid gay companions, tempted perhaps 
by the sex that has suffered enough from 
intemperance, one would suppose, to make 
them shrink with horror from its first ap- 
proaches ; and how great his danger ! Let 
him be decoyed by older so-called friends 
to her house whose "feet go down to 
death, whose steps take hold on hell;" 
let the snare be suddenly sprung upon 
him — he thinks he is master of himself; 
his mother has perfect confidence in her 
boy; he is his sister's pride — but who 
will answer for his virtue ? The young 
man is proudly conscious of his strength. 
He is not as others have been before him 
— of this he is confident. But what is a 
Samson, if he is but a man, and if the 
thing to be achieved is but a simple nega- 
tive ? The hero who single-handed would 
storm a battery, has often paled and 
trembled and been defeated, when all he 



SERMON TO YOUNG MEN. 83 

had to do was simply to face the enemy 
and say " No !" Oh how weak is man, 
and how pitiable his condition, left to his 
own unaided self! God help the young 
man who trusts to his native strength and 
to his self-respect, and to his love for his 
father and for her who bore him, and for 
the sister whose heart is bound up in his 
success ! Stronger than all these restrain- 
ing cords ! — oh how often has it proved ! 
— is this cowardly fear of man, and this 
love of present flattery and praise, which 
lurk in all our breasts. 

These three facts, of which I have just 
reminded you, my friends, these are the 
basis upon which I commend to you, to- 
night, this Book. Made for a definite 
and exalted end, you will certainly lose 
sight of it; seeking to pursue it, and 
striving with all your energies to attain 
it, you would certainly fail, because your 
own nature is against you, and because 



84 SERMON TO YOUNG MEN. 

you are in an enemy's country, and temp- 
tations and tempters are all around you. 

Under these circumstances^ the Bible 
alone has solved the problem of man's 
salvation. It knows his wants, and it 
boldly and lovingly meets them — not 
with flattery, but with truth ! Its solemn 
finger points up to God, and points in to 
self. Its searching eye searches the 
heart to its centre. It probes diseased 
nature, regardless of the pain it causes. 
It points to the one only remedy, or to 
the alternative, everlasting death ! 

If accepted, now, my hearers, its words 
of cheer and promise are for you. If 
chosen to-night, (to-morrow we cannot be 
sure of) and made henceforth your Coun- 
selor and Guide, it will throw around you 
a strong arm of support ; it will interpose 
a shield between you and all evil ; it will 
show you " the pillar of cloud by day " 
and " the pillar of fire by night ;" and at 
your call it will summon to your side, as 



SERMON TO YOUNG MEN. 85 

your Saviour and Helper and Friend — 
and there is not a man, and never has 
been of all the race, who does not need a 
Saviour and a Friend — it will summon to 
your side, both in life and death, "a 
stronger " than the ^^ strong man armed " 
without, " a stronger " than the " strong 
man armed" within 1 



11. 



THE BIBLE THE YOUNG MAN'S 
COUNSELOR. 

PREACHED SABBATH EVENING, FEBRUARY 23, 
1862, AND REPEATED, BY REQUEST, ON THE 
NEXT SABBATH EVENING. 



JOSHUA i. 8, 7. 
"This Book op .the Law shall not depart out of thy 
mouth; but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, 
that thou mayest observe to do according to all that 

IS WRITTEN therein: FOR THEN THOU SHALT MAKE THY WAY 
prosperous, and then thou SHALT HAVE GOOD SUCCESS. 

Turn not from it to the right hand or to the left, 
that thou mayest prosper* whithersoever thou goest." 

These are the words of the Lord, ad- 
dressed to Joshua. In the eleventh chap- 
ter of Numbers we read: " Joshua, the 

* Or, as we have it in the margin, that thou mayest do 
wisely. 



SERMON TO YOUNG MEN. 87 

son of Nun, the servant of Moses, one of 
his young menr Although he is not now, 
as addressed in the text, a young man, 
yet his circumstances are somewhat ana- 
logous to those in which a young man 
finds himself; and certainly, the words in 
which this book of the law is commended 
to Joshua as a book of counsel and com- 
mand, and a sure guide to wisdom and 
success, these are most appropriate words 
to be addressed, as I address them to- 
night, to every young man. 

Moses had just died, and Joshua finds 
himself bereft of the wise counsels and 
strong arm on which he had been accus- 
tomed to lean; just as the young man 
often is without the wise head and the 
warm heart and the strong arm of a 
father to lean upon. If the father is still 
living, the son is often far away from 
home, and his father cannot be his con- 
stant counselor. Responsibilities such 
as Joshua never knew before, now rest 



88 SERMON TO YOUNG MEN. 

upon him; and just as new and fearful 
responsibilities rest upon the young man 
standing on the threshold of active life. 

" The Lord spake unto Joshua, the son 
of Nun, Moses' minister, saying, Moses 
my servant is dead ; now therefore arise, 
go over this Jordan, thou and all this 
people, unto the land which I do give to 
them. Only be thou strong and very 
courageous, that thou mayest observe to 
do according to all the law which Moses 
my servant commanded thee. This book 
of the law shall not depart out of thy 
mouth; but thou shalt meditate therein 
day and night, that thou mayest observe 
to do according to all that is written 
therein: for then thou shalt make thy 
way prosperous, and then thou shalt have 
good success. Turn not from it to the 
right hand or to the left, that thou mayest 
do wisely whithersoever thou goest." 

What the Jordan was to Joshua and 
the children of Israel, youth is to the 



SERMON TO YOUNG MEN. 89 

children of men everywhere — the divid- 
ing line beyond which lies the land of 
promise. And if Joshua then needed this 
solemn injunction and this word of en- 
couragement, as they applied to the law 
of Moses, equally does the young man 
need them as they apply to the whole 
Bible. Well is it, as the young man 
stands upon the border of this promised 
land, if he feels, as Joshua felt, that it is 
full of foes, .and that it can only be pos- 
sessed as it is first subdued, and that it 
can be subdued only as its battles shall 
be fought according to the Word and in 
the strength of the Lord of hosts. Well 
is it, as he stands upon the threshold of 
active life, if the young man makes the 
Bible his counselor. Even though he 
be highly privileged in the counsels of his 
father and mother, and though he have 
faithful employers and kind and judicious 
friends to give him the benefit of their 
experience, and suitable admonition and 

8* 



90 SERMON TO YOUNG MEN. 

encouragement, he still needs another — 
a more faithful, a more constant, and a 
wiser counselor than any of these. Such 
a counselor is the Bible; one which he 
may always have by his side — one which 
embodies the sympathy and the wisdom 
of Heaven in his behalf — and one which 
will always speak the right word at the 
right time. Without the Bible, indeed, 
for his chosen counselor, there is danger 
that he will throw all other wise counsels 
to the winds, and follow only the counsels 
of foolishness. 

I. The young man needs to make the 
Bible his counselor, I remark, in the first 
place, as he stands upon the threshold of 
social life. 

Social life is something more than 
laughing and talking, and eating and 
drinking, and walking and riding to- 
gether. Bar-rooms and ball-rooms are 
not essential to it; nor are brilliantly 



SERMON TO YOUNG MEN. 91 

lighted parlors and gay parties. It is not 
limited to the evening hours. It is not 
controled by fashion. We are moving 
amid its scenes almost every hour of the 
day. It includes all the relations by 
which the Creator has bound us together 
and made us dependent upon one an- 
other. It has its obligations and labors, 
as well as its pleasures and pastimes. It 
makes its demands upon our intellectual 
as well as our animal nature. It appeals 
to conscience and taste, as well as to 
passion and fashion. It is at once the 
source of the highest happiness and of the 
greatest misery which we can experience 
from any earthly source. It admits of, 
and it often calls for, true heroism. It is 
full of dangers — dangers to ourselves and 
to others. It is full of temptations — 
temptations to excess in what is in itself 
proper, and temptations to indulgence in 
what is improper and forbidden. God 
may be served in social life, and is to be, 



92 SERMON TO YOUNG MEN. 

though the temptation is to serve mam- 
mon, and, in serving mammon, to serve 
Satan. 

As social life, now, opens up before a 
young man — eager, impatient, ambitious, 
confiding, easily flattered, easily led, wild 
and wilful as the young man naturally is. 
to a greater or less extent — he needs a 
counselor, now to instruct him, now to 
stimulate him, now to encourage him, now 
to put him on his guard, now to rebuke 
him and solemnly warn him; a secret and 
constant counselor, one that shall be un- 
seen and unheard, save by himself, even 
in the midst of a crowded circle, and one 
that shall be by when the battle is going 
on in the solemn silence of the heart's 
inmost chamber, when there is no eye to 
see save the Adversary's and the All-see- 
ing eye. 

He not only needs to be well-informed 
and faithfully admonished in regard to 
the dangers which beset the social side of 



SERMON TO YOUNG MEN. 93 

his nature^ but to be counseled in regard 
to his duties. Society has claims upon 
every man; not only his family and his 
place of business, but his neighborhood, 
those with whom circumstances have na- 
turally associated him, the religious con- 
gregation with which he is connected, and 
the community in which he lives. 

It is not only rehgiously, but socially 
true that a man is "not his own." Not 
only municipal, but social laws justly 
subject every man to taxation for the 
common good. Every man is bound to 
pay tribute to society, in time, in counsel, 
in labor, and in money. Analogous to 
the loyalty which every one owes to 
the government, is the public spirit and 
the jealous concern for the public good 
which every member of society ought to 
feel. Now and then you will find men 
who recognize these social obligations and 
show their loyalty to society. There are 
great public improvements and valuable 



94 SERMON TO YOUNG MEN. 

institutions, whose founders and sup- 
porters coming generations will rise up to 
bless as benefactors of society. And as 
you push your inquiries into the smaller 
circles of society, the names multiply of 
those who have wrought for the public 
good. And there are social benefits en- 
joyed, numerous and great, the names of 
whose authors are known to few, and 
perhaps none; but their works follow 
them. 

There are thus some who do not live 
to themselves. There are some who do 
not ask, "Am I my brother's keeper?" 
There are some who remember the poor, 
and the unfortunate, and the sick, and the 
outcasts, and them that are in prison, and 
the orphan, and the stranger, and the 
homeless. There are some who consult 
their neighbor's feelings and interests — 
the common interest, and the general 
good. 

Whence, now, come these good w^orks 



SERMON TO YOUNG MEN. 95 

— this remembrance of others — public 
spirit, charity, philanthropy? As you 
compare Christianized with heathen and 
pagan lands, the answer is, for the most 
part, all this comes from the Bible. 

What of social good, and whatever 
exemption from social evil we as a nation 
and as a community enjoy, we owe, for 
the most part, to the Bible. Suppose 
that all who profess to obey the Bible 
were true to its spirit, and constantly and 
fully obedient to all its precepts, what a 
community we should be! And suppose 
all were thus true to the Spirit of the 
Bible — those who profess and those 
who do not profess — how pleasant, how 
pure, how ennobling a social atmosphere 
would surround us and our children! 
How the intelligent and refined would 
seek a residence among us, to find a safe 
retreat for their children from the divers 
evils which everywhere else so disgrace 
the forms and poison the streams of social 
life! 



96 SERMON TO YOUNG MEN. 

How desirable, then, that the Bible 
should be the counselor of our young 
men — your counselor, my hearers, who 
are already giving character, or want of 
character, as the case may be, to our so- 
cial life ! Those who have hitherto been 
prominent for good, or for no good, here 
in social life, are passing away. You are 
taking their places, not merely to drink at 
fountains already provided, not simply to 
enter upon others' labors, not to be re- 
cipients only; but to affect, for good or 
for evil, these fountains yourselves, and 
to open new ones, to sow the seeds from 
which our children are to gather grapes 
or thorns, to make the social life of this 
community and nation better or worse. 

Very likely this is more than you have 
engaged to do. You have not signed a 
contract for doing the one or the other. 
But this does not secure us against the 
evil you may do ; and it does not secure 
to us, and to yourselves, and to the world, 



SERMON TO YOUNG MEN. 97 

and to God, the good you may do, and the 
good yoii ought to do ! 

We want you to make the Bible your 
counselor, because we know that it 
will continually remind you of this your 
responsibility, and reason with you and 
entreat you on the one hand, and solemnly 
warn you on the other. We want you to 
make the Bible your counselor, both on 
your own account and on our and our 
children's account. When we meet you, 
or hear of you, in social life, whether here 
at home or abroad, we would be proud of 
you. We would have no occasion to 
blush for you, or to apologize for you. 
Once, at least, when I was away from 
home and traveling with a large com- 
pany, I found that I had a personal in- 
terest in the reputation and character of 
every young man in Kalamazoo. One 
of them was with us. I will not say 
whether I had occasion to be proud or to 
be ashamed — but it was one of the two! 



98 SEEMON TO YOUNG MEN. 

We want to find you, and every one of 
you, worthy of the confidence of your 
employers; fit companions for our daugh- 
ters, and safe examples for our sons ; well 
informed and cultivated in mind -, refined 
in your manners, and pure in your heart 
and life. And we believe the Bible to be 
the surest guide to politeness, the best 
hand-book for the gentleman, the most 
effectual safe-guard for reputation and 
character. We want to see each of you 
a worthy member of society, taking the 
highest place and occupying the largest 
sphere to which your abilities entitle you; 
wise in counsel, liberal in spirit, earnestly 
devoted to the public good, and, for so- 
ciety's sake, making the most of the 
talents which God has committed to 
your keeping. For your own sake, we 
want you to make the Bible your coun- 
selor, as you come within the range of 
the temptations of social life, that you 
may be saved from its vices, that you 



SERMON TO YOUNO MEN. 99 

may not disappoint the hopes which, to 
a fond mother's eyes, were like a halo 
around your cradled head, that you may 
not make a wreck of hopes which you 
yourself have been cherishing now for 
long years. 

Other counselors, we know, you are 
hable to have — and some of them posi- 
tively evil counselors, for the young man 
almost as certainly falls among such, as 
the traveler from Jerusalem to Jericho 
fell among thieves— and we fear for you 
if you do not make the Bible your chosen 
counselor. I cannot dwell longer on this 
head, for the time is passing. I had in- 
tended to give you a sample of the Bible's 
counsels with reference to many things 
included in our social life. I can now 
only refer you to the portion of Scripture 
which was read this evening, from the 
first and fourth chapters of the Book of 
Proverbs, and quote you the words of the 
wise man: "Bejoice^ young man, in thy 



100 SERMON TO YOUNG MEN. 

youth, and let thy heart cheer thee in the 
days of thy youth, and walk in the ways 
of thine heart and in the sight of thine 
eyes; but know thou that for all these 
things God will bring thee into judg- 
ment." " Remember now thy Creator in 
tho days of thy youth, while the evil days 
come not, nor the years draw nigh, when 
thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in 
them." And the words of Paul, which I 
wish might be written in every young 
man's memorandum-book, and inscribed in 
letters of gold upon all the avenues of our 
social life — "Whatsoever things are true, 
whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever 
things are just, whatsoever things are 
pure, whatsoever things are lovely, what- 
soever things are of good report; if there 
be any virtue,"^ and if there be any praise,f 
think on these things." 

* i. e. Any otl^r virtue. 

f i. e. Whatsoever is worthy of praise. 



SERMON TO YOUNG MEN. 101 

II. It is equally important, I remark^ 
in the second place, that the young man 
make the Bible his counselor as he stands 
upon the threshold of business life. 

This remark, I am afraid, will not be as 
readily assented to as the previous one. 
Most associate the Bible, to a greater or 
less extent, with social life* They have 
not forgotten the family Bible, and more 
or less of the language of the Bible is 
familiar to them, in connection with these 
social relations which we sustain. But it 
is to be feared that many, even of those 
who profess to make the Bible their coun- 
selor at home, have very little thought 
about carrying the Bible with them to 
their places of business. And it is to be 
feared that many deliberately settle the 
question with themselves, at the outset, 
that it will not do to undertake to do 
business according to the Bible. 

To those who would leave the Bible at 
home, as a matter of course, who regard 

9* 



102 SERMON TO YOUNG MEN. 

it as a book for the Sabbath^ and a book 
of abstract doctrine, it needs to be said 
that the Bible is one of the most practical 
of all books, and as practical for every 
other day of the week as for the Sabbath; 
as appropriate to the shop as to the parlor, 
and as binding on the street and behind 
the counter, as in the nursery and in the 
Sabbath-school. And to those who have 
so summarily settled the question that 
business cannot be carried on successfully 
according to the principles of the Bible, 
it needs to be. said that the Bible is no 
more out of place in the counting-house 
than it is in the dwelling-house. If there 
are many who have taken this position, 
the Bible would seem to have a special 
mission; and none could be more import- 
ant in these days of extensive trade and 
commercial enterprise — to enter at once 
the field of business life, and proclaim in 
thunder tones its "Thus saith the Lord," 
to our business men. 



SERMON TO YOUNG MEN. 103 

The dangers to be encountered in busi- 
ness life are perhaps as great, and as fatal 
to the soul, as those of social life. The 
evils of the former are less demonstrative 
and less rapid in their destructive work; 
but who shall say that a corrupt con- 
science is not more loathsome in the sight 
of God, and ultimately more fatal to the 
individual, than corrupt social habits ? 

Parents often, doubtless, feel that if 
their sons can only be got past the un- 
steadiness of youth, and sobered down to 
regular application to business, a long 
agony will be over; but although to some 
extent this may be true, yet their sons 
are only surrounded by new dangers. 

Another has described the field of busi- 
ness life as "a most disastrous one to 
human virtue. If its chronicles could be 
written," he says, " they would furnish as 
well some of the saddest as some of the 
brightest chapters in the annals of the 
race. To an eye gifted with spiritual 



104 SERMON TO YOUNG MEN. 

discernment, it is a field strewn with me- 
morials of the dead, surpassing, as much 
in their sorrowful significance as in their 
numbers, the bones which have whitened 
the soil of Leipsic or of Waterloo. Where 
War has slain its thousands. Commerce 
has slain its tens of thousands ; with other 
weapons indeed, but with a more terrible 
and far-reaching mortality. It presents 
to us no batteries and bayonets, no blood 
and carnage. It strikes not at the body., 
though this sometimes falls; but at the 
soul. It smites with a secret leprosy, 
which spreads its fatal virus through the 
arteries, even where there is every out- 
ward indication of health and happiness." 
Young men who stand upon the threshold 
of this department of life, '^ are breathing 
an infected atmosphere, and in jeopardy 
every hour." 

If this be true, does not the young 
man, standing where he does, need a 
bold, wise, and faithful counselor — a 



SERMON TO YOUNG MEN. 105 

counselor that shall be bold enough to 
question stereotyped rules and manners, 
wise enough to distinguish between ap- 
parent and real success, and show that 
all is not gold that glitters, and faithful 
enough to resist the influence of custom, 
and insist upon it — even though it be in 
the face of all the world — that a good 
conscience and honesty and integrity are 
worth more than millions of money ? 

When the Henry Clay was burned on 
the Hudson river ten years ago, among 
the number whose lives were sacrificed 
was Hon. Stephen Allen, an aged and 
opulent merchant of New York. He had 
been mayor of the city, and had filled 
various other public offices, greatly to his 
own credit and to the satisfaction of his 
fellow-citizens. When the body was re- 
covered, there was found in his pocket- 
book a well-worn newspaper slip, of which 
the following is a copy : 



106 SERMON TO YOUNG MEN. 

''Keep good company or none. 

" Never be idle. 

"If your hands cannot be usefully employed, 
attend to the cultivation of your mind. 

" Always speak the truth. 

" Make few promises. 

'' Live up to your engagements. 

" Keep your own seciets, if 3^ou have any. 

" When you speak to a person, look him in the 
face. 

''Grood company and good conversation are the 
very sinews of virtue. 

'' Good character is above all things else. 

'' Your character cannot be essentially injured 
except by your own acts. 

" If any one speaks evil of you, let your life be 
so that none will believe him. 

''Drink no kind of intoxicating liquors. 

" Ever live (misfortunes excepted) within your 
income. 

" When you retire to bed, think over what you 
have been doing during the day. 

" Make no haste to be rich, if you would prosper. 

" Small and steady gains give competency, with 
tranquillity of mind. 

" Never play at any kind of game of chance. 

"Avoid temptation, lest you may not with- 
stand it. 



SERMON TO YOUNG MEN. 107 

^' Earn money before you spend it. 

'^ Never run into debt, unless you see a way to 
get out again. 

^' Never borrow, if you can possibly avoid it. 

'^Do not marry until you are able to support a 
wife. 

''Never speak evil of any one. 

*' Be just before you are generous. 

'' Keep yourself innocent, if you would be bappy. 

" Save wben you are young, to spend wben you 
are old. 

"Kead over tbe above maxims at least once a 
week." 

As this was published in the news- 
papers in connection with his death, 
doubtless every one felt ^^that was the 
secret of his success." And doubtless 
many an employer and many a father said 
to himself, " Would that my young men, 
would that my sons, would only make 
these maxims their rule of life!" And, 
very likely, it was the feeling of many, 
as they after that met the gay young men 
of New York on Broadway, and spending 



108 SERMON TO YOUNG MEN. 

their leisure hours about hotels and at 
places of amusement^ " What a pity they 
are not as wise as Stephen Allen!" 

And such a little counselor as his in 
many a man's pocket-book would be worth 
more to him than a fortune to start with. 
But what I have to say now is that if 
every person of good sense recognized 
the wisdom of that eminent merchant, 
and felt that they had discovered the 
secret of his success, what must every 
sensible man's response be to the pro- 
position that the young man, as a busi- 
ness man, should make the Bible his 
counselor? 

Full of wisdom as these maxims which 
I have just read are, some of them, after 
all, are somewhat defective, and the best 
of them are simply Scripture maxims, the 
language only a little varied. Now, why 
not supply whatever deficiency there is 
in these, and have them all the very best. 
The Bible not only includes the best of 



SERMON TO YOUNG MEN. 109 

these, but many others equally appro- 
priate and equally full of wisdom. I had 
hoped to be able to quote some of these, 
and show how luminous they are with 
practical wisdom, when we look at them 
with an eye to their application to the 
business affairs of life; but I have not 
time, and I can only add under this head, 
that while the Bible abounds in practical 
maxims which point directly towards suc- 
cess, it contains no requirements that are 
at all inconsistent with any of the true 
elements of success. The impression, I 
know, of some is that here and there it 
would be necessary to leave the Bible to 
the right or to the left, in order to be 
shrewd, and to maintain a reputation for 
business sagacity; but our text is right, 
and they are wrong. " Turn not from it 
to the right hand or to the left," and keep 
it for this very purpose, in order that 
thou mayest do wisely; ^Hhen thou shalt 
have good success." 

10 



110 SERMON TO YOUNG MEN. 

III. I remark, thirdly, that the young 
man needs to make the Bible his coun- 
selor, as he stands on the threshold of 
political life. 

You will understand that I do not mean 
to designate by this term " political life," 
that narrow, tortuous, dirty, and often 
underground path which the mere par- 
tisan travels, and sometimes travels on 
his hands and knees. I mean that broad 
and exalted field which stretches out be- 
fore every young American, full of respon- 
sibilities and glorious in its privileges — 
the field of citizenship and statesmanship. 
Alas ! that the word politics has been so 
prostituted as to make it seem almost of 
the nature of a caricature to place it side 
by side with the Bible, as if the two might 
be made to stand together without mutual 
repulsion ! Would that the effort to keep 
them side by side were not left, to so 
great an extent as it is, to ministers of 
the Gospel! Would that the point here 



SERMON TO YOUNG MEN. Ill 

made were not so rarely found outside of 
the sermon! Would that what the pulpit 
thus preaches to young men were prac- 
tised by all Christians before their eyes ! 
Christian citizens are not few in num- 
bers, nor small in their influence. Chris- 
tians are found among our law-makers and 
law pleaders; and Christians are to be 
found in our national and state and 
municipal and military officers; yet the 
Christian element is sadly wanting in our 
political life. Even high-toned morality, 
to say nothing of Christian principle. 
Christian sensitiveness, a jealousy for the 
honor and glory of God, a concern for the 
progress of Christ's kingdom — even high- 
toned morality seems, almost by common 
consent, to be almost wholly ruled out 
from the sphere of politics. Even in 
these days, when it would seem an easy 
thing to be a pure patriot and an honest 
citizen, from simple love of country, and 
from the simple sight of such strange 
spectacles, so shocking as they seem to 



112 SERMON TO YOUNG MEN. 

our moral sense — spectacles of foul trea- 
son against and wholesale fraud upon the 
Government — even in these days, how 
constantly we are shocked by glaring evi- 
dence and by painful suspicions of the 
corruptness of our political life! How 
refreshing is every exhibition of pure 
patriotism, of political honesty and inde- 
pendence, of official integrity! 

Here and there a Christian of eminent 
ability and high position, both in civil and 
in military life, shows us — and the exhi- 
bition thrills the hearts of even worldly 
men — what virtue, what strength, and 
what glory the religious element gives to 
political life. We were yesterday re- 
minded, here upon this platform — and I 
was glad that the testimony came from 
one who did not speak as from the pulpit 
— reminded of Washington's piety as the 
crowning excellence of the army's and 
nation's head.* And who has not felt 

• The anniversary of the birth of Washington had 
been observed the day before, in the Presbyterian Church, 



SERMON TO YOUNG MEN. 113 

that the flag-officer of our gun-boats is 
the more of a soldier for being a Chris- 
tian?* 

when the remark alluded to was made by the Honorable 
Chakles E. Stuart, formerly United States Senator from 
Michigan, in his introduction to the reading of the Fare- 
well Address. 

* The speaker here referred in glowing terms to the 
Christian character of Gen. McClellan, and to the lan- 
guage which the telegraph had just attributed to Gen, 
BuRNSiDE, implying his unwavering faith in God, amid 
the disasters and delays which accompanied the early 
movements of the great expedition called by his name. 
Upon the repetition of the sermon, Mr. Huggins added the 
following : — 

" I am thankful that the past week has furnished me 
another name from among the officers and statesmen on 
whom our country is especially relying in this the hour 
of her trial — another name to enforce the point which I 
am making here, viz., that the Bible should be the young 
man's counselor in political life. Says Secretary Stan- 
ton: 'Much has recently been said of military combi- 
nations and organizing victory. I hear such phrases 
with apprehension. They commenced in infidel France, 
with the Italian campaign, and resulted in Waterloo. 
Who can organize victory ? Who can combine the ele- 
ments of success on the battle field? We owe our recent 
victories to the Spirit of the Lord, that moved our soldiers 
to rush into battle, and filled the hearts of our enemies 
with terror and dismay. The inspiration that conquered 
10* 



114 SERMON TO YOUNa MEN. 

Did the Bible make Franklin any the 
less a statesman? or Wilberforce? In 
the closing days of Jackson and of Clay, 
did the Bible on their tables and in their 
hands — their acknowledged counselor 
then — dim the lustre of their political 
renown? 

The time is passing, and I must hasten 
to a conclusion. But I have said enough 
to enforce the point that our young men, 
as they stand upon the threshold of poli- 
tical life, need to make the Bible their 
counselor — for their own sake, for our 
country's sake, and for the whole world's 
sake — for the whole world is becoming 
more and more interested, and vitally in- 
terested, in the questions of American 
politics, and in the character of American 
citizenship. 

in battle was from on high ; and wherever there is the 
same inspiration, there will be the same results.' 

"It would seem that Mr. Stanton, when he gathered 
his books and counselors about him in his youth, did not 
leave the Bible out." 



SERMON TO YOUNG MEN. 115 

IV. I remark, in the fourth place, that 
the young man needs to make the Bible 
his counselor, as he stands upon the 
threshold of an endless life. 

Upon this point I need not dwell in 
order to enforce it. The very mention of 
it, side by side with these limited spheres 
of life, is enough to startle one ! It is as 
if we heard the echo of our footfall sound- 
ing out from the solemn spaces of eter- 
nity! 

Standing, though a young man seems 
especially to do. in contact only with 
those more apparent and apparently more 
pressing realities, it is really upon the 
threshold of an endless life. Looking 
out now upon this, shall he take counsel 
of his own wayward and wicked heart — 
of a vain, deceitful world ? Where shall 
he find a counselor, as he stands here — 
and here he is all the time standing — 
except in the Bible, which solemnly warns 
him of hell and points him to heaven? 



HI. 

THE DANGER FROM EVIL 
COMPANIONS. 

PREACHED SABBATH EVENING, MARCH 9, 1862 * 



PROVERBS i. 10, 15; and iv. 15. 

"My son, if sinners entice thee, consent thou not. 
Walk not thou in the way with them ; refrain thy foot 
from their path. avoid it, pass not by it, turn from 
it, and pass away." 

We were made social beings. He who 
made us said, "It is not good that man 
should be alone." These words point not 
to wedded life only, but also to the com- 

* This was the last sermon written and preached by 
the lamented Pastor. Early in the week following its 
preparation, he was seized with the disease which termi- 
nated his life, and he expired the second Sabbath after 
its delivery. 



SERMON TO YOUNG MEN. 117 

panionships and friendships of childhood 
and 3^outh. If we have a pleasant thought, 
or experience a feeling of pleasure, we are 
the happier — or we were made to be — ^for 
sharing it with others. " Two," the wise 
man says, "are better than one; for if they 
fall, the one will lift up his fellow ; but woe 
to him that is alone when he falleth. And 
if one prevail against him, two shall with- 
stand him ; and a three-fold cord is not 
quickly broken." 

And yet, alas ! beautiful as is childhood 
when we see it hand in hand, and beau- 
tiful and helpful as the friendships of 
youth often are, how often has this foun- 
tain of happiness and help, which was 
opened in Eden, proved a source only of 
evil ! Two have often proved worse than 
one. Instead of " the one lifting up," it 
has been the one dragging down "his 
feUow." If you are just ready to slip 
upon the ice, it does not help you to have 
another, who is already going, seize you 



118 SERMON TO YOUNG MEN. 

by the hand. If two take each other by 
the hand, going in opposite directions — 
the one down hill, and the other struggling 
to get up — the chances are as nine to one 
that they will go together ; and I need not 
say in which direction ! So in these com- 
panionships of life, the advantage is gene- 
rally, if the evil and the good are linked 
together, on the side of the evil. As moral 
beings we are all, indeed, subject to strong 
downward tendencies ; but, to a greater or 
less extent, in various ways, these are 
counteracted in the case of most, so that 
the great majority, as they start out in 
active life, are not standing on the steepest 
and most slippery places ; and so long as 
they are not, we have hope that the grace 
of God may intervene to overcome these 
downward tendencies, to displace the gra- 
vitating principle, and to lift them upward, 
as they struggle up the steep ascent of 
virtue. The steep descents, and slippery 
places, however, are not far off, and the 



SERMON TO YOUNG MEN. 119 

shortest road to them lies through evil 
companionship. If another reaches oat his 
hand to us, we had better look well to his 
footing. It may be safe for us to go 
alone; and yet he may help us. 

Thus it is not good to be alone ; and 
yet it is often worse to be in company, 
our companions being what they are. 
And hence, next in importance to the 
question, who and what our parents are — 
they who start us on the journey of life — 
is the question who and what our com- 
panions are. For companions or asso- 
ciates we shaU certainly have, from our 
childhood up, and we are perpetually sur- 
rounded and followed by influences from 
this source, either for good or for evil; 
and we know that in a world like this, the 
evil influences far outnumber the good. 
The evil influences from this source lurk 
at every door, to corrupt the children of 
the household as they pass out. They 
lie along every path to meet them. 



120 SERMON TO YOUNG MEN. 

in whatever direction they go. They 
await the young man on the street, at his 
place of business, and at every point 
where he comes in contact with his fel- 
lows. No pains of parents or employees, 
and no pains of his own, can wholly pre- 
vent his exposure to them. 

And yet it is not just as if he were 
breathing an infected atmosphere, or were 
exposed to contagious disease; for, as 
moral beings, we are not mere passive re- 
cipients. Contact with evil does not ne- 
cessarily injure us. (It does if we con- 
sent to it, and needlessly suffer it.) Mere 
exposure is not necessarily fatal. Our 
character, and our moral condition and 
destiny, are in our own hands. The in- 
junction, " Resist the devil, and he will 
flee from you," shows that we have the 
power to resist -, and the solemn warnings 
and imperative commands of our text show 
that evil and its agents are not our mas- 
ters, except by our own consent. It may 



SERMON TO YOUNG MEN. 121 

seem to parents and guardians, as they 
look out upon the evil influences which 
lurk in the early companionships of life, 
that they are fearfully powerful, and that 
the ability to resist them is weak and un- 
reliable; yet there can be no mistake as 
to the fact of the responsibility which lies 
at the door of every moral being, old or 
young. The parent recognizes it, as he 
commands and entreats his son to be on 
his guard, to be careful what company he 
keeps, and to take care of himself, looking 
to God for help. The son and the daughter 
recognize it, as they reply, " You need not 
be anxious on our account; we are not 
afraid; we are able to take care of our- 
selves." 

But now the next question is, will they 
take care of themselves ? Looking to God 
for help, will they resist the devil, and 
the agents and instrumentalities which the 
devil employs ? This is a question of fear- 
ful interest. Parents ask it with aching 
11 



122 SERMON TO YOUNG MEN. 

hearts and trembling apprehension. Em- 
ployers tell us they are almost afraid to 
ask it ; it awakens so little hope and so 
much apprehension. He who is called to 
preach God's Word, asks it with anxious 
concern, knowing that his voice will be 
likely to have little power, whether in the 
way of admonition or entreaty, if evil com- 
panions have the ear of those to whom he 
preaches. 

My object to-night, as you see, is to 
call the attention, especially of young men, 
to the importance of the question what 
company they keep, and particularly to 
the dangers of evil companionship. Per- 
haps I have said enough already as to the 
fact of danger from this source ; and yet 
I fear that this is the point of greatest 
danger, that the danger is not sufficiently 
seen and felt. Let me, therefore, tell you, 
young men, directly, and in so many words, 
that there is danger, and of the most fear- 
ful kind, in these companionships which 



SERMON TO YOUNG MEN. 123 

you form, or which you suffer others to 
form — you, as one of the parties, simply 
consenting thereto. Would that I could 
sound this out so loud and long that it 
would ring in your ears wherever you go, 
and be a warning voice under just the cir- 
cumstances when you most need to be 
warned. 

Warnings in the house of God, I suppose, 
seem very much a matter of course. 
Would, not that the preacher's voice, but 
that this Word of God which he preaches, 
would ring in your ears on the corners 
of the streets, at the doors of these bar- 
rooms and ball-rooms and saloons, and in 
whatever rooms or wherever else sinners 
entice you. " Walk not thou in the way 
with them; refrain thy foot from their 
path. Avoid it, pass not by it, turn from 
it, and pass away !" " He that walketh 
with wise men shall be wise ; but a com- 
panion of fools"- — ^the wicked are not only 
wicked, but fools in the sight of God — 



124 SERMON TO YOUNO MEN. 

'^ a companion of fools shall be de- 
stroyed !" 

I might put you on your guard more 
particularly against many sins and dan- 
gers to which you are exposed — against 
profanity, dishonesty, intemperance, gam- 
bling, licentiousness ; but in this word of 
warning to-night, a multitude of dangers 
are summed up in one. Escape this, and 
you escape them. Pay no heed to this 
warning, and it were almost useless to 
warn you further. 

Suppose I were to approach you, sur- 
rounded in a bar-room by a company of 
gay companions, or in some retired room 
where the cards were on the table, and 
you made just the number for the game, 
and that I were to undertake to put you 
on your guard against the dangers which 
I should see gathering their snaky folds 
about you ! No matter with what skill I 
should seek to accomplish my object — 
even though I could summon from the 



SERMON TO YOUNG MEN. 126 

dead, as Samuel's shrouded form arose be- 
fore the terror-stricken Saul, the face and 
form of some dear departed friend — a 
sainted mother or sister — should I be 
likely to succeed under such circum- 
stances? Would you be likely to turn 
your back upon that gay company, just 
as the invitation went round to drink ? 
Suppose you should say, " No" once ! 
Would you not have to say it twice and 
thrice ; and would you be likely to hold 
out a great while, one against half a dozen? 
Would you not be likely to say to your- 
self, caught in the snare of an easily- 
deceived and deceiving heart, " The easier 
way, after all, will be to drink this once^ 
and say no more about it ?" And, by the 
way, '' this once" — what a key " this 
once" has been to transgressions and 
their consequences, whose name is "'le- 
gion! 

"^Did you ever attend the theatre?' 

said a young man to a blue-eyed maiden, 

11* 



126 SERMON TO YOUNG MEN. 

who hung on his arm as they promenaded 
the streets of New York, one mild even- 
ing in October. The cheek of the lady 
crimsoned with a blush as she answered 
the interrogatory in the negative, and 
added : ' My mother has taught me from 
childhood that it was wrong to attend 
such places.' ' But your mother formed 
perhaps improper prejudices, from exag- 
gerated accounts given by others ; for I 
have often heard her say she never at- 
tended one in her life.' And he spoke 
eloquently of the drama, tragedy and 
comedy; and dwelt with pathos on the 
important lessons which we there learn of 
human nature. * Go with me once,' said 
he, ^ and judge for yourself.' Persuasion 
and curiosity triumphed over the maternal 
precept and example, as she hesitatingly 
replied, ' I'll go but once.' She went, and 
in that theatre a charm came over her like 
the one which the serpent sent forth from 
his dove-like eye. She went again and 



SERMON TO YOUNG MEN. 127 

again, and from that house of mirth and 
laughter, she was led to one from the 
portals of which she never returned. 

" Around a centre-table, wliere an astral lamp 
was shedding its mild light, sat three young ladies, 
while one held in her hand a pack of cards. At 
the back of her chair stood a young gentleman, who 
for years had successfully resisted every effort made 
by his companions to induce him to learn the 
characters on cards. ' Come,' said she, ' we need 
one to make our game ; phxy us once, if you never 
play again.' Her eye, cheek, and lip, conspired to 
form an eloquent battery which sent forth its at- 
tacks upon the fortress of good resolutions, in which 
he bad long stood secured, until it fell like the walls 
of an ancient city, when jarred by the fearful batter- 
ing-ram. He learned the cards and played. A few 
weeks afterwards, I was passing his room at a late 
hour, and a candle was shedding its dim light 
through the window. Since that time I have looked 
from my chamber nearly every hour of the night. 
' from close of day till morn,' and seen that light 
faintly struggling through the curtains that screened 
the inmates of that room from every eye save His 
which seeth alike in darkness and at noonday. 
Gaming brought witb it disease, and death came 



128 SERMON TO YOUNG MEN. 

just as he had numbered the half of three-score 
years and ten. During his last hours I was sitting 
by his bedside^ when he fixed on me a look which I 
shall never forget, and bade me listen to his dying 
.words. ^ I might have been a different man from 
what I am, but it is too late now. I am convinced 
that there is a state of existence beyond the grave ; 
and when I think of the retribution which awaits 
me in another world, I feel a horror which language 
is inadequate to describe.^ These were among the 
last words he ever uttered.'^ 

But to return. The question which 1 
ask is, would my warning, under the cir- 
cumstances which I have supposed, be 
very likely to succeed ? Had I not better 
warn you, and had you not better warn 
yourself, before you cross the threshold, 
and before you join the company whose 
steps are likely to be turned in that di- 
rection ? 

I point you, therefore, to-night, to the 
danger you are in from evil companionships. 

And isn't there danger? Do you not 
see it yourself? Look at that young man. 



SERMON TO YOUNG MEN. 129 

whom you remember as a boy — his eye 
clear, his cheek with the hue of health 
upon it, his dress neat, and his whole ap- 
pearance interesting and promising — but, 
as you meet him now, his eye is Avatery 
and restless, his face is bloated, he walks 
no longer with the elastic step of earlier 
days ; all pride in regard to personal ap- 
pearance is gone, or a little of it still re- 
maining ; he will not meet your eye, but 
looks the other way. Have you not often 
wished that he would not keep the com- 
pany he does ? Have you not felt that 
the set he goes with are destroying him ? 
Is it not often said of him, that evil com- 
panions have been his ruin? 

Some months ago I used to meet every 
day a young man whose personal appear- 
ance attracted my attention. He was par- 
ticularly well dressed, and his step and all 
his movements indicated good habits, 
energy, and ambition and hope. Perhaps 
I had seen him before, and now observed 



130 SERMON TO YOUNO MEN. 

an evident " looking up" in point of cha- 
racter and purpose. After a while I no- 
ticed that a change had come over him ; 
and now there is a total contrast with his 
appearance then. Neatness of personal 
appearance, and elasticity of step and 
movement, are all gone. There is no am- 
bition now, and apparently little hope ; 
and " bad habits" seem to be written upon 
his face and form. I saw him one morning 
the past week, coming out of the back 
door of a saloon. I found myself silently 
asking the question, whether he probably 
found his way into the saloon for the first 
time alone. 

But look into your own hearts, young 
men. Do you not find there danger enough 
to make you tremble, as from time to time 
you find how weak you are against the 
evil suggestions which come from within ? 
With all the counteracting influences of 
home, and more or less of ambition to 
make something of yourself, the struggle 



SERMON TO YOUNG MEN. 131 

you have often found a hard one, with 
these temptations of the heart. 

Isn't it, now, almost suicidal to cast 
yourself away, or to suffer yourself to be 
surrounded by those whose habits are 
loose, whose lives are aimless, and whose 
associations, to say the least, are question- 
able ? 

If one stream, subject as it is to sudden 
freshets, is liable to carry away bridge and 
dam and mill, is it not madness in him 
whose property it puts in jeopardy, to suf- 
fer others above him to turn other streams 
into it, if he can prevent them ? 

It is enough to have to resist ourselves. 
And is he not a fool, both in the Scrip- 
tural sense and in the ordinary sense of 
the term, who needlessly, and with eyes 
open, adds foes without to foes within? 
And I do not use this term ^' foe" merely 
in a figurative sense ; for the danger is 
not simply from contact with evil, and 
from exposure to bad example. There is 



132 SERMON TO YOUNa MEN. 

often a strange disposition, and a fiendish 
purpose on the part of those who are al- 
ready on the downward road, to get an 
influence over the new-comer, in order to 
drag him down too. And how cunningly 
they play their game ! How well they 
know the weak points of their coveted 
prey! How stealthily they weave the 
net around him; or, if he resist, how 
mercilessly they ply the weapons of their 
hellish warfare. How easy to make him 
think that he knows hotter than his pa- 
rents, or to shame him out of his deference 
to their opinions and wishes ; and to set 
him against his employers, if they are 
faithful to keep a watchful eye upon him, 
and to prejudice him against the minister 
of the gospel, and the Sabhath-school, and 
religion ; and to break up his habit of 
reading the Bible, and of going regularly 
to church ! How expert they are in quot- 
ing — and, alas ! what occasion is given 
them for it! — in quoting what church- 



SERMON TO YOUNG MEN. 133 

members do, and what they do not do ; 
and, if facts are not readily found, how- 
easy to make them to suit their purpose ! 

It is the nature of the sinner not only 
to sin, but, in the language of the text, to 
^' entice" others to sin. And hence, the 
injunction is not only '- consent thou not," 
as if it were of little use to say that, and 
say nothing more, but, " my son, walk not 
thou in the way with them ; refrain thy 
foot from their path;" and then, with a 
remarkable repetition of warning and en- 
treaty, to give intensity to it, " avoid their 
path, pass not by it, turn from it, and pass 
away !" 

But even if there were no such fearful 
danger of being corrupted by companion- 
ship with the reckless, and the unprin- 
cipled, and the impure, how great the in- 
justice which a young man does himself, 
and how miserable the policy, to say the 
least, if he suffers himself to be seen and 
identified with such associates ! 

12 



134 SERMON TO YOUNG MEN. 

'^ People will, in a great degree/' says 
another, ^^ and not without reason, form 
their opinion of you u^pon that which they 
have of your friends ; and there is a Span- 
ish proverb, which says very justly, ' Tell 
me with whom you live, and I will tell 
you who you are.' " 

It will not do to say that you do not 
care w^hat others think, nor to place your- 
self in this attitude, because their opinions 
may happen to be incorrect ; that you are 
not dependent upon others' opinions ; and 
that it is enough if you take care of your- 
self and escape, as you expect to, the evils 
which are apprehended from this source. 

You are dependent upon others' opinions ! 
Is it of no consequence to you that your 
employer begins to suspect your honesty, 
because of the company you keep ? May 
it not make some difference with you, 
what the merchant over the way thinks 
of you? Circumstances may throw you 
out of your situation, or he may have a 
more lucrative one which he wishes to fill. 



SERMON TO YOUNG MEN. 135 

You. are not independent of the good 
opinion of men whose names you do not 
know. Suppose some one abroad writes 
to one of these men : " My attention has 
been called to such a young man in your 
community, as a competent, or a promis- 
ing business man. Please write me what 
you think of him, and especially what you 
know of his habits and associations." Can 
you not conceive of circumstances w^hich 
would make it very fortunate for you, if 
the answ^er should be entirely favorable ? 
But what if it were this : " I am not per- 
sonally acquainted with the young man 
in regard to w^hom you inquire, and I do 
not know any thing against him, except 
that I have frequently seen him of late 
standing idly about our hotels, and often 
in company with young men whose repu- 
tation is not very good ?" Would not that 
be very likely to close the correspon- 
dence ? 

But it is time for me to ask a question 



136 SERMON TO YOUNG MEN. 

which I wish to ask, in view of this great 
danger to which all young men are ex- 
posed. 

My question is this — What do you, my 
friends, in view of this danger, propose 
to do? 

There are, doubtless, multitudes of 
young men in the land who never have 
asked themselves this question. They 
take no thought either for the morrow or 
for the day itself, so far as good and evil, 
right and wrong, as such, are concerned. 
They take things as they come, and as 
they affect the pocket, and the con- 
veniences and pleasures of the passing 
hour. Apparently they have no other 
personal interests to look after. Reputa- 
tion and character they have little thought 
about. To make money, and have some- 
thing good to eat and drink, and to enjoy 
themselves, seem their only aims. 

There are others who have thoughts 
about these things, but they are reckless ; 



SERMON TO YOUNG MEN. 137 

they ''don't care," particularly if you wish 
them to care. If pressed with the ques- 
tion, '' What they propose to do ?" they 
do not propose to do any thing. This, at 
least, is the language of their looks and 
actions. If I am addressing any such, 
let me ask you what right, my friends, 
you have to be reckless — to assume this 
'' don't-care" attitude ? Sometimes it is, 
^' Nobody cares for me, and I care for no- 
body ;" and again, in an uncharitable mood, 
you resent the care which is manifested 
for you. Others do care for you, and you 
are botmd to care for yourself and for them. 
A want of good sense in such things we 
can tolerate in a boy, hoping he will grow 
wiser as he grows older ; but a young man 
ought to be above all real or assumed in- 
difference to the good opinions of others 
and of his own interests. 

But there are many who have felt the 
importance of this question, and they have 
given it more or less consideration. They 

12* 



1S8 SERMON TO YOUNG MEN. 

do not mean to go with the worst of those 
whom they may come in contact with; 
and yet they feel as if they must be on 
good and familiar terms with most of those 
into whose company they may fall. It is 
very pleasant to be popular, or, at least, 
to be in good favor with those who are. 
Hence they make up their minds to avoid 
the worst companions ; but they do not 
propose to be very particular. They mean 
to have their eyes about them, and they 
feel a little pride in their conscious ability 
to take care of themselves. What they 
propose to do is to secure the end, with- 
out being troubled about the means. They 
propose to avoid being ruined, as a great 
many, they admit, have been. 

Conceive of one in a little boat on Ni- 
agara river, who hasn't made up his mind 
how far down the river he will sail before 
he will stop. But he understands what 
an awful thing it would be to go over the 
falls ; he trembles when he thinks of it ; 



SERMON TO YOUNG MEN. 139 

he is determined that he will not be 
caught down where the waters make that 
fearful plunge. Meanwhile, his hand is 
on the oar, and he floats along. The 
waters give an ominous leap now and then, 
but he only grasps his oar the tighter, and 
determines that he will be on his guard, 
and still floats on. He is warned from 
the shore, and the warning startles him a 
little ; but he thinks it unmanly to seem 
to be afraid, and still floats on. As he 
did not propose to do any thing but to re- 
solve that he would not be caught as 
others had been ; so he does nothing but 
re-resolve. But he is in the rapids, and 
now — what ? You may not see, but you 
know the end ! 

Young men ! the current of Niagara is 
not the only dangerous current. There 
are leaping waves and boiling eddies, 
and a mighty under-tow, equally resist- 
less, and more fatal than any you see 
there. It will not do simply to determine 



140 SERMON TO YOUNG MEN. 

that you will avoid the worst companions, 
but not be very particular whither you 
float, and where you are founds and what 
you are about ! 

My advice to you would be, if you will 
hear me — though do not follow it, if it is 
not wise counsel — my advice Avould be 
this : 

I. And first — and in this remark let 
me suppose that you are a new comer, a 
stranger among strangers, or just entering 
upon early manhood, and as yet with no 
intimate associates — make up your mind. 
settle it with yourself, that to have no com- 
panions is better than to have such as are 
of dangerous or doubtful character. I 
have not forgotten the thought we started 
with, that ^'it is not good to be alone." 
I know what a young man's social nature 
is. I remember that I said that almost 
inevitably we shall have associates ; but 
upon new ground you may certainly take 
a little time to look about you. It is not 



SERMON TO YOUNG MEN. 141 

necessary that you offer yourself at once 
as a candidate for companionshipSj or that 
you open your arms and give an unre- 
stricted ear to all who may approach 
you. There will be very little embarrass- 
ment in pursuing this course ; and you can 
easily bear the self-denial of going your 
own way, and keeping your own counsel 
for a while, if you will only give this mat- 
ter a little consideration in advance, and 
give yourself to understand that it is a 
matter legitimately under your own con- 
trol, and one in which a little caution will 
be as much in place as in the choice of 
your business, or the selection of a board- 
ing-place. 

Make up your mind, then, to have no 
companions until you can find such as you 
have good reason to believe will prove 
safe ones. In the meantime, you need not 
give any occasion for unkind feelings to- 
wards you, or for any reasonable objec- 
tions to the course Avhich you pursue. 



142 SERMON TO YOUNG MEN. 

You can be a gentleman to all you come 
in contact with. You need not seem proud 
nor exclusive. You simply hold yourself 
somewhat in reserve. So long as you do 
this, you are easily your own master. 
Within these reserved limits it is com- 
paratively easy to resist the approaches 
of temptation, and to say, " No !" To do 
this is a very different thing, if one has 
rushed heedlessly into company, and at 
the outset let down all the bars of self- 
respect and reserve. This is to ignore 
the fact that there is danger ; or, knowing 
it, and seeing it, it is weakly and cowardly 
to surrender in advance. 

II. Again, not only in the meantime 
look well about you, but ialce a long look 
ahead ; and I will add another thing to 
this, frequently look back also. 

The plans and expectations of youth 
naturally bring the future more or less into 
view ; but, nevertheless, I think that the 



SERMON TO YOUNG MEN. 143 

young man's eye, especially when he is 
forming his first companionships, is A^ery 
largely filled by the present. There is so 
much that is novel and attractive and ex- 
citing in the scenes upon which he enters, 
that he is liable to think and feel and act 
as if these days were to last always, and 
to lose sight of the weightier responsi- 
bilities and more important interests which 
will be upon his hands a few years later. 
Hence, I say, take a long look ahead, 
and see the bearing this question of asso- 
ciates has upon those grave responsibilities 
and important interests in which the hap- 
piness and usefulness of your life are in- 
volved. 

I say, also, frequently look hacJc, because 
in that direction lie the innocent days of 
your childhood, which it will do you good 
to look back upon, and the sweet associa- 
tions of home, and fond memories of father 
and mother, and brothers and sisters. A 
look in that direction will remind you of 



144 SERMON TO YOUNG MENi 

what you owe to yourself, to your truer 
and better self; aud what you owe to your 
parents and to your family, and to the 
place which gave you birth. 

III. Again, it will help you in this 
matter of controlling your companionships 
to attend closely to your business. 

There are other motives for doing this ; 
but this also is a motive, that it will be a 
safeguard to you against dangerous asso- 
ciates. It Avill be an excuse for saying, 
" No," and for going the other way — an 
excuse which none can gainsay — your 
business, which requires your attention, 
and your obligations to your employers ; 
for do not fail to keep these in mind as an 
honest man, and be brave and manly enough 
not to be ashamed to have this known. 

IV. Again, be sure and have some safe 
retreat from the social evils to which you 
are exposed. 



SERMON TO YOUNO MEN. 145 

It will be fortunate, though you, per- 
haps, may not think so, if you are not out 
of reach of your home. But if away from 
home, have some place which will seem 
at least a little like home — a room of your 
own, if you can command one; and the 
more it is out of the way the better — and 
make it as pleasant as you can. Invite 
yourself thither by all the attractions with 
which you can fill it — though they need 
not be many nor expensive — but be care- 
ful whom else you invite. And here, so 
far as you can command the time for it, 
make books your companions. A very 
little caution will make them safe, plea- 
sant, and profitable companions. They 
will never invite you, and almost force you, 
to drink, when you do not wish to ; and, 
if you will make it a rule never to have 
one in your room which you would be 
ashamed to have your father or mother or 
sister see, they will never corrupt you. 

With such a castle of your own, and 

13 



146 SERMON TO YOUNG MEN. 

with such pleasant and profitable friends 
within its walls, and your careful, delibe- 
rate choice of outsiders to meet you there 
in your leisure hours, and such social in- 
tercourse as you may easily have with in- 
telligent families, it would seem that you 
would be in comparatively little danger 
from this great evil of which I have been 
speaking. 

Y. Again, I would suggest — and if you 
are really disposed in self-defence to guard 
against this great evil, I think you will 
see that the suggestion is a practical sug- 
gestion — that you connect yourself with 
some Christian congregation, and with the 
Bible Class in the Sabbath-school. 

It is hardly necessary that I address 
you separately who are not new comers, 
and who may be already to a greater or 
less extent involved in the net-work of 
evils which spring from this prolific source. 
What is appropriate to any one case, will 



SERMON TO YOUNG MEN. 147 

apply substantially to all cases. The diffi- 
culties are greater in your case than in 
that of the new comer; but only make 
these principles and this policy your own, 
and quit yourselves like men, and you 
may yet escape the perils that surround 
you. 

VI. But my counsel would be incom- 
plete without one more suggestion — and 
it is the most important of all — make 
Christ your friend and comp anion j^ 

* As the pen here dropped from the failing grasp of 
the dying Pastor, it appears to have rapidly traced the 
words, "He, a young man," referring to Christ, the topic 
of the last head — which in the pulpit he developed elo- 
quently, and at some length. There are one or two blank 
spaces in the last few pages of the manuscript, indi- 
cating an "intention to commit further thoughts to paper, 
which his departing strength or the pressure of other 
duties prevented. 



THE END. 



